F 




are F-lQ>^- 

Book fj[ ,JJ 2- 



EARLY TIMES IN RALEIGH. 

ADDRESSES 

DELIVERED BY THE 

HON. DAVID L. SWAIN, LL. D. 

AT THE DEDICATION OF 

TUCKER HALL, 

AND ON THE OCCASION OF THE COMPLETION OF THE 

MONUMENT TO 

JACOB JOHNSON; 

WITH 

MAPS OF THE CITY OF RALEIGH, 

FOR THE TEARS 1792, 1834 AND If 




JOMPILED BYE. iL ^,C KE^\\^ 



RALEIGH: 

WALTERS, HUGHES & COMPANY, 

1867. 



> 



COPYEIGHT APPLIED FOP, 











o 






i k 














iln-_'lii*& Coi «!>»">" 



•--".--• — BVa. 









- I 



- 

"■ 



- 









u 

■ 










j 





















- 













AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OP TUCKER HALL, SATURDAY 
EVENING-, AUG. 24TH, 1867. 

There were few more exciting topics in ante-revolution- 
ary times, than the location of the seat of government. 

The first G-eneral Assembly, in relation to which we have 
much authentic information, met at the house of Capt. 
Richard Sanderson, on Little River in the county of Per- 
quimons in 1715, and revised the whole body of the public 
statute law. 

The style of enactment is characteristic of the times and 
of the Proprietary Government " Be it enacted by his Ex- 
cellency the Palatine and the rest of the true and absolute 
Lords Proprietors of Carolina by and with the advice and 
consent of this present General Assembly now met at Little 
River for the North-eastern part of this province." 

From Little River, the seat of Legislation was transfer- 
red in 1720, to the General Court House at Queen Anne's 
Creek in Chowan Precinct, and in 1723, to Edenton. 

In 1731, the Propriatory was succeeded by the Royal 
Government, and in 1734, the legislative will assumed a 
form of expression worthy of eastern despotism. 

; ' We pray that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by 
his Excellency, Gabriel Johnston, Esquire, Governor by 
and with the advice and consent of his Majesty's council 
in the General Assembly of this Province." 



In 1741, the General Assembly met at Wilmington but 
returned the following year to Edenton. From 1745 to 
17G1 with the exception of a single session at Bath, it 
convened at New Berne. In 1761, it met again in Wilming- 
ton, and from that time keen rivalry was maintained 
between New Berne and Wilmington for metropolitan dis- 
tinction, until quieted by the act of 1766, authorizing the 
construction of Governor Tryon's vice regal palace at 
New Berne. This edifice completed in 1770, dedicated 
to Sir William Draper, and the subject of his muse in an 
attempt at Roman versification, was pronounced on good 
authority, in 1783, superior to any structure of the kind in 
British or South America. 

During the revolution, the General Assembly met some- 
what in accordance with the exigencies of the times, at 
New Bern, Kinston, Halifax, Smithfield, Wake Court House, 
Hillsboro, and Salem. 

In 1782 and '83, the Legislature convened at Hillsboro r , 
in 1784 and '85, at New Berne, in 1786 at Fayetteville, in 
1787 at Tarboro', and in 1788 returned to Fayetteville. 

In 1787, the General Assembly had resolved that it 
" be recommended to the people of the State to authorize 
and direct their representatives in the Convention called to 
consider the Federal constitution to fix on the place f /br the 
unalterable seat of Government. " 

The Convention met at Hillsborough in August, 1788 r 
and resolved that this Convention " will not fix the seat of 
Government at one particular point, but that it shall be 
left to the discretion of the Assembly, to ascertain the exact 
spot, provided always, that it shall be within ten miles of 
the plantation Avhereon Isaac Hunter now resides j in the 
County of Wake." 



The following editorial article is copied from the Fayette- 
ville Chronicle or North Carolina Gazette of the 29th of 
November, 1790. 

" On Thursday last the bill for carrying into effect the 
Ordinance of the Convention, held at Hillsborough, in 1788, 
for holding the future meetings of the General Assembly, 
«&c., came before the House of Commons, when the question 
was put, shall this bill pass ? The House divided, and there 
appeared fifty-one for it and fifty-one against it, whereupon 
the Speaker (Mr. Cabarrus) gave his own vote and pro- 
nounced the passage of the bill. It was then sent to the 
Senate, when that House divided, and there appeared an 
equal number of votes for and against the passage of the 
bill, whereupon the Speaker (General Lenoir) gave the 
casting vote against its passage, and the bill was rejected." 

In 1791, however, the General Assembly met at New 
Bern, and in compliance with the positive constitutional 
injunction passed an act to carry the Ordinance of 1788 
into effect. The act provides that ten persons shall be 
appointed to lay off and locate the City within ten miles 
of the plantation of Isaac Hunter, and five persons " to 
cause to be built and erected a State House sufficiently 
large to accommodate with convenience both Houses of the 
General Assembly, at an expense not to exceed ten thousand 
pounds." ' 

In the following year (1792) a majority of the Commis- 
sioners to wit : Frederic Hargett, Willie Jones, Joseph 
McDowell, Thomas Blount, "William Johnson Dawson and 
James Martin met on the 4th of April, and on the following 
day purchased of Col. Joel Lane 1,000 acres of land, and 
laid off the plan of a City, containing 400 acres, arranged 
in five squares of 4 acres, and 276 lots of one acre each. 
Caswell square (the site of the Institute for the Deaf, Dumb 
& Blind) the North-western, Burke (the site of the Raleigh 



6 

Academy) tlic North-eastern, Nash the South-western, 
Moore the South-eastern, and Union,, on which the State 
House stands, the central square. 

The names of the towns in the direction towards which 
the principal streets ran, gave them their designation, and 
the names of the Commissioners and other prominent 
citizens were applied to the others. New Berne, Hillsboro,' 
Halifax and Fayetteville streets were 99 and all the others 
66 feet in width. 

In December, 1794, the General Assembly met in the 
new State House for the first time. 

In 1802, an act was passed requiring the Governor to 
reside at the seat of Government, and a plain two story 
framed building painted white, and an office on the corner, 
were provided on lot No. 131. This first gubernatorial 
mansion was subsequently the residence of the late James 
Coman. The first National Bank of North Carolina now 
occupies the site from which the first Executive office and 
Mr. Coman's brick store, were successively removed. 

In 1813. the General Assembly appointed Henry Potter, 
Henry Seawell, William Hinton, Nathaniel Jones, (Crab 
Tree,) Theophilus Hunter and William Peace commissioners 
to erect on the public lands, near the city of Raleigh, a 
convenient and commodious dwelling house for the Gov- 
ernor, at a cost not to exceed five thousand pounds, to be 
derived from the sale of lots which they were authorized 
to lay off, and from the sale of lot No. 131, referred to the 
residence at successive periods of Governor's Turner, 
Alexander, Williams, Stone, Smith and Hawkins. 

The site selected for the new gubernatorial residence, in 
common parlance, the palaoe, was near the terminus of 
Fayetteville street, directly South of and fronting the 



capitol, and just beyond the Southern boundiy of the city. 
The edifice was completed during Governor Miller's admin- 
istration from 1813 to 1816 and he was the first occupant. 

In 1819, Duncan Cameron, John Winslow, Joseph Gales, 
"William Robards and Henry Potter were authorized to sell 
all or any part of the lands purchased of Joel Lane, with 
the exception of the Stone Quarry, in lots to suit purchasers. 

The Governor was authorized from the proceeds of the 
sale, to improve the State House under the direction of the 
State Architect, and in conformity with a plan which he 
had prepared and submitted to the General Assembly. 

The old State House, which is believed to have been 
constructed from the nett proceeds of the sales of City lots 
in 1792, was described by a writer of the time as a huge 
misshapen pile. 

In form it was substantially, so far as the body of the 
building was conceri ed, though on a smaller scale, very 
similar to the present edifice. It was divided by broad 
passages on the ground floor, from North to South and from 
East to West, intersecting in the centre at right angles. 
The offices of the Secretary, Public Treasurer and Comp- 
troller were on the lower floor. The Senate Chamber and 
Hall of the House of Commons, with the offices appur- 
tenant, above as at present. The Executive office as has 
been stated was contiguous to the palatial residence. 

The passages and halls of the first State House supplied 
all, and more than all, the accommodation to the public 
contemplated by the founders of this less extensive, but 
better furnished, and more finely finished edifice. Divine 
worship on the Sabbath, balls on festive occasions, theatrical 
representations, sleight of hand performances, and last but 
not least, Fourth of July Orations and Fourth of July 



dinners, all found their places, and their votaries for a 
time. These passages and these halls were supplied by 
the public Treasury of the State. The Tucker Hall 
emanates from the private exchequer of two brothers, 
sons of a worthy father, who within the range of my 
remembrance was a merchant of very limited capital, but 
with a character for sobriety, integrity, industry, economy 
and enterprise, worth more than the wealth of Croesus in 
incompetent and untrustworthy hands. 

The construction of the dome, the erection of the East 
and West Porticoes, the additional elevation and covering 
of stucco given to the dingy exterior walls, the improvement 
of the interior, and especially the location of the statue of 
Washington from the chisel of Canova, a noble specimen 
of a noble art, commemorative of the noblest of men in 
the rotunda at the point of intersection of the passages 
directly under the apex of the dome, converted the renova- 
ted Capitol into a sightly and most attractive edifice. 

There were but few of the better class of travellers, who 
did not pause on their passage through Raleigh, to behold 
and admire it. 

The improvements were designed by, and executed under 
the supervision of Capt. William Nichols recently appointed 
State Architect, and completed early in the summer of 
1822. He was a skillful and experienced artist, and made 
the public greatly his debtor a for decided impulse given to 
architectural improvements throughout the State, in private 
as well as in public edifices. 

The white framed cottage, planned and constructed for 
the late Moses Mordecai, just beyond the Northern boundry 
of the City, was copied again and again in remote sections 
of the State, and various Court Houses and other public 



9 

structures were designed, arid in some instances erected 
under his imnlediate supervision, as in Guilford and David- 
son. 

It was niv lot on the 21st. of June, 1831, to stand a 
helpless spectator, when that noble edifice adorned with 
the Statue of the father of his country, was a sheet of 
blinding, hissing flame, and to hear amidst the almost 
breathless silence of the stupified multitude around it, the 
piteous exclamation of a child, "poor State House, poor 
Statue, I so sorry." There were thousands of adults present 
as sorrowful and as powerless as that child. 

It was my lot as Chief Magistrate of the commonwealth, 
on the fourth day of July, 1833, to lay the corner stone of 
the present capitol, supposed on its completion, to be the 
most magnificent structure of the kind in the Union. 

It was my lot on the morning of the 13th of April, 1865, 
as the friend and representative of Governor Vance, to find, 
on approaching the Southern front of the capitol, the doors 
and windows closed, and a deeper, more dreadful silence 
shrouding the city, than during the sad catastrophe to 
which I have referred. I met at the South front of the 
Capitol, however, a negro servant, who waited on the 
executive department, the only human being who had 
dared to venture beyond his door. He delivered me the 
keys and assisted me in opening the doors and windows of 
the executive office, and I took my station at the entrance, 
with a safe conduct from General Sherman in my hand, 
prepared to surrender the Capitol at the demand of his 
approaching forces. At that moment a band of marauders, 
stragglers from Wheeler's retiring cavalry, dismounted at 
the head of Payetteville street, and began to sack the 
stores directly contiguous to and South of Dr. Haywood's 



10 

residence. I apprised them immediately, that Sherman's 
army was just at hand, that any show of resistance might 
result in the destruction of the city, and urged them to 
follow their retreating comrades. A citizen, the first I saw 
beyond his threshhold that morning, came up at the moment 
and united his remonstrances to mine, but all in vain, until 
I perceived and announced that the head of Kilpatrick's 
column was in sight. In a moment every member ot the 
band, with the exception of their chivalric leader, was in 
the saddle and his horse spurred to his utmost speed. 
He drew his bridle rein, halted in the centre of the street, 
and discharged his revolver until his stock of ammunition 
was expended in the direction, but not in carrying distance 
of his foe, when he too fled, but attempted to run the 
gauntlet in vain. His life was the forfeit at a very brief 
interval. 

The remains of this bold man rest in the cemetery cov- 
ered with garlands and bewept by beautiful maidens, little 
aware how nearly the city may have been on the verge of 
dev; station, and how narrowly the fairest of their number 
may have escaped insult and death, from this rash act of 
lawless warfare. 

The bones of the old North Carolinian, the founder of 
the city thus imperiled, moulder in the midst of other un- 
recorded dead, beneath the shade of a mulberry on his 
ancient domain, about as far West, as those of the young 
Texan, East of the Capitol. 

About 3 o'clock in the evening, in company with Gov- 
ernor Graham, who had risked life and reputation in behalf 
ofthis community to an extent, of which those who derived 
the advantage are little aware, I delivered the keys of the 
State House to General Sherman, at the gubernatorial 



11 

mansion, then his head-quarters, and received his assurance 
that the Capitol- and City should be protected, and the 
rights of private property duly regarded. 

May I be pardoned in connection with this narrative, for 
a brief reference to an incident in my personal history, 
illustrative of the character of one of the purest as well as 
the wisest men I have ever known. At our first interview 
after my election as Superior Court Judge in 1831, Mr. 
Gaston who was then at the bar and who from our earliest 
acquaintance, had treated me with the kindness of a father, 
after cordial congratulations on my elevation to the bench, 
took occasion to advise me most earnestly, never to permit 
myself, except under an overpowering sense of public duty, 
to be seduced into a return to political life. He said he was 
growing old, and endeavored as much as possible to with- 
draw attention from the threatening aspect of public affairs, 
but there were sleepless hours when he could not avoid 
reflection on the utter heartlessness of party politicians, 
and the difficulty of preserving a conscience void of offence 
when mingling in political controversies,- -that he had 
always endeavored to place country above party, and that 
yet, on a calm review of his whole course of life, too many 
instances presented themselves, when he convicted himself 
of having been influenced to an extent of which he had 
no suspicion at the moment, by other than purely patriotic 
considerations. In addition to all this, it had been his fate 
on repeated occasions to be most loudly applauded for what 
in his own conscience he regarded as least praiseworthy, and 
to be bitterly reviled for what he considered to have been the 
purest and most discreet acts of his public life. 

I have taken pains to trace the history of the most im- 
portant edifices from their foundation down to a period 



12 

within the memory of many who hear me. There is a class 
of structures so nearly public, however, that the common 
law requires no one to knock for admission as at the door 
of a private residence, and where others besides the immor- 
tal Shenstone sometimes suppose they find " their warmest 
welcome." 

Cassos immediately contiguous to the State House, and 
the Indian Queen, kept by Capt. Scott next door to the Court 
House, were until 1812, the most noted taverns. The State 
House bell was the only bell in the City for almost 20 
years. 

In 1809, however, there was in addition a town, court 
house and academy bell. 

The town bell was suspended at Cassos corner, and gave 
him pre-eminence over his competitor. 

And now commences a new era of city improvement. — 
On the 1st July 1812, Charles Parish opened his new hotel 
for the accommodation of citizens and way farers. His ad- 
vertisement which I copy from the papers of the time, speaks 
for itself and is an interesting announcement as a matter of 
history. I hope he performed all the promised, though I 
found no bathing rooms at the Eagle, ten years thereafter. 

EAGLE HOTEL, RALEIGH, N. C. 

" Charles Parish informs his friends and the public that his tavern 
is now open for the reception of travellers and boarders in the new 
three story building north of the State House and fronting Union 
Square. The house is spacious, completely finished, and well furnished, 
and the stables equal to any. For a well supplied table (served from a 
neat and cleanly kitchen) luxuries of the rooms, beds, attendance, &c, 
&c, it is determined that this tavern shall excel any in the Southern 
States." 

|W° N. B. An Ice House and Bathing Rooms will be constructed 
by next season." 

The ice house and bathing rooms were probably the ear- 
liest introduction of these luxuries among the growing 
refinements of the city. 



13 

This Hotel was the first brick house erected in Raleigh 
with the exception of the State House. The old State Bank 
was built the following year, and these with the Presbyte- 
rian Church, the Bank of Newberne (Dr. Haywood's resi- 
dence) both erected in 1812, Mr. Gales's printing office and 
Comans store were in 1822, the only brick houses within 
the limits of the city. The Palace was of brick, but was at 
that time just beyond the southern boundary. 

In 1822 Fayetteville street was lined on both sides with 
wooden buildings ordinarily of small dimensions and mod- 
erate value. Nearly all the stores were on that street south 
of the State House and North of the Court House. William 
Williams sold goods in a house of Mr. Boylan, contiguous 
to the Book Store on the lot where the Episcopal Church 
now stand. 

Mr. Wilson, nephew of Mr. Boylan and a very intelligent 
young man was offering the remnant of Mr. Boylan's stock 
of books in a contiguous building. Mr. Gales's was the 
older and more extensive, and only other book store. 

The Minerva had been discontinued and the Register and 
Star both published weekly, were the only newspapers.* 

William Glenclennin, the crazy parson, who nevertheless 
was not without method in his madness, and about whom 
some capital stories were current, was among the early mer- 
chants as well as William Peck andBenj. S. King (for many 
years Clerk of Wake County Court.) 

All these however had retired from business. John 
Stuart, James Coman, the Shaws, John S. Babatau, James 
D. Newsom successor to Southy Bond, and Alfred Jones, R. 
and W. Harrison, Richard Smith, Benjamin B, Smith, Robert 
Cannon, S. Birdsall and R. and W. C. Tucker, and perhaps 
others whom I may not remember, were the principal mer- 

*See Appendix No. iv. 2* 



14 

chants. Of the whole number the proprietors of this Hall are 
the only representatives of a mercantile house of fifty years 
ago. Ruffln Tucker, the father of the proprietors, began life a 
Clerk in the store of the late Southy Bond in 1815 at a salary 
of $25 for the first, and in an increasing ratio for the two 
succeeding years. 

In 1818 in connection with his brother William C. Tucker 
bred a printer under Col. Henderson, in the office of the 
Raleigh Star, he opened a store with a cash capital of $125, 
in a frame building of modest dimensions on the precise site 
of the edifice in which we are now aseembled. This edifice 
we now christen and dedicate to appropriate and liberal 
purposes as Tucker Hall. 

In 1828 the co-partnership of W. C. and R. Tucker was 
dissolved by mutual consent and each brother prosecuted a 
successful business on his own account. 

In 1846 Ruffin Tucker having reaped the reward due to 
integrity, skill and industry, found himself at the head of 
a family consisting of a wife, one of the best of women, and 
three sons, all of whom had received or were in pursuit of 
Collegiate education- William H. H. Tucker having attain- 
ed the proper age was received as a partner, and the firm 
of R. Tucker & Son conducted their affairs with their 
wonted success, until its dissolution by the death of the 
v * senior partner on the 9th April 1 8B'l. On the occurence of 
this sad event, W. H. H. Tucker united his two younger 
brothers Rufus S. and the late Dr. J. J. W. Tucker with 
him, the latter as a silent partner under the name of W. H. 
& R. S. Tucker. Under this name they have continued 
their pursuits with increasing capital and undiminished 
energy with an unavoidable cessation of two years, during 
the civil war. 



15 

On the 1st July 1866, Thaddeus McG-ee the son-in-law, 
of William C. Tucker who had managed successfully the 
inheritance derived from his father-in-law, with the hand 
of his daughter, was received as a partner, when the name 
and style of this mercantile family dating back to 1815, 
became what it is at present Yi. H. & R. S. Tucker & Co. 

"William and Matthew Shaw have been mentioned among 
the oldest merchants. The former is believed to have been 
the first postmaster in the city. 

From 1792 until the publication of the Raleigh Register 
in the autumn of 1799 the North Carolina Journal was the 
great advertising medium, for the portion of the State north 
and west of Halifax.* 

On the 23d Sept. 1798, William Shaw advertised for sale 
or rent, " Three Store Houses wiiji commodious counting 
Rooms, with fire places to each. They are in an excellent 
stand for business, nearly central between the State House 
and Court House, on the flourishing and beautiful street of 
Fayctteville. The said Store houses have attached to each 
of them a sufficient quantity of ground (now under fence) 
for a good garden, also out houses, either for a small family, 
or a single man who should choose to board himself." 

"The number of store houses advertised to rent might in- 
duce a belief that Raleigh is on the decline, though the 
very reverse is the case, it having been at no period in a 
more flourishing condition than at present. One of the said 
stores was built about two years ago, which has never been 
without a tenant any length of time since." 

Whether the fence here alluded to was of boards or rails, 
as well as the present number of occupants, and the value 
of the brick edifices on the three lots in question, is a subject 
for curious inquiry. 

Of the 244 acre lots sold in 1792, there is I believe but a 
single instance of continuous ownership or occupancy in 

*See Appendix, No. IV. 



16 

t lie family of the original purchaser. The property known 
ay Bennehan's Grove was purchased by the late Richard 
Bennehan in 17G2. 

Conspicuous among- the merchant princes of that day, 
were the brothers Joseph and William Peace. They occu- 
pied, a one story frame building, perhaps 20 x 2-1, nearly 
opposite to W, C. & R. Tucker. 

The junior partner informed me many years ago, that he 
had ordinarily purchased goods, twice a year, always for 
cash and always at 10 per cent, discount, and that the ad- 
vantage thus obtained over those who bought upon credit, 
was the nucleus of the large estate he had realized. 

He was kind enough in October, 1822, as soon as I was 
able to travel, after recovering from severe illness, to drive 
me from Raleigh to the hospitable mansion of the late Gen. 
Calvin Jones, the present site of Wake Forest College/ 
On the way he related various incidents in his personal 
history, which interested me. Referring to the success of 
an eminent lawyer and statesman, f as estimable in private 
as distinguished in public life : he stated that that gentle- 
man who was licenced to practice law during his minority, 
applied to him shortly thereafter, for a suit of clothes upon 
credit. That he had always made it a rule to meet such 
requests with such prompt compliance as to impress the 
applicant with a grateful sense of the confidence reposed, 
or, with so blank a denial as to shield him from future an- 
noyance. In this instance he admitted that he hesitated. 
The appearance and manner of the applicant impressed 
him most favorably, but he was very young, as well as very 
needy, and the captain had learned from previous experience 
that the young lawyer's prospects were a contingent re- 
mainder, which required a particular estate, of freehold to 

tTlie Hon. George E. Badger. 



17 

support them. It afforded him great gratification to re- 
member that his kind impulses prevailed and that he cut 
off the goods with great seeming cheerfulness. 

I had no suspicion until three months afterwards, that 
the story could point a moral in relation to myself. At the 
close of a casual interview, after the recovery of my health, 
he said : " Mr. Swain, perhaps it is convenient for you to 
pay for that suit of clothes n ow." What suit, Captain ? "The 
suit you purchased sometime since." I replied, I never 
bought anything of you in my life, but one bandanna 
handkerchief, and I paid for that when I got it. He turned 
to his book, and shewed me an account for a full suit of 
black, dated 10th of September. " On that day Captain I 
was sick in bed and my life dispaired of by my physicians." 
" Oh ! I remember it was F*^,^ got the clothes." He was 
sent for, and in reply to my inquiry whether he ever got a 
suit of clothes for me, replied he did. "Had you any order 
from me to do so ?" " No, sir, but you were expected to die 
every hour, I knew you had no burial suit and thought it 
my duty as your tailor to provide one." " Where are the 
clothes ?" " When I found you were getting well I sold 
them." " What right had you to consider yourself my 
tailor ?" " I made a pair of pantaloons for you last Spring." 
At the close of the dialogue the Captain remarked : "I claim 
nothing from you Mr. Swain," but the tailor left the store 
under the decided impression that his best interests would 
be* served by a prompt settlement of the account. Had 
I died, a punctual but not opulent father, would have paid 
the bill upon presentation without inquiry. 

With the older brother, the late Joseph Peace, I was 
much less familiar. He was understood to possess a vein 
of sly and quiet humor, the more effective, from the gravity 



18 

of manner which characterized and accompanied its exhi- 
bition. 

The late William Boylan, the first editor of the Raleigh 
Minerva, and the immediate successor of Col. Polk as presi- 
dent of the State Bank, was a gentleman, sedate and grave 
in manner to a degree, that to a stranger, might have been 
taken for austerity. 

Travelling from Raleigh to Pittsboro' about 1800, he 
and Mr. Peace on reaching the election ground at Brass- 
fields, found a multitude assembled engaged in dancing and 
other rural sports, in the free and easy manner characteristic 
of the time and place. 

Mr. Peace was comparatively at home. Mr. Boylan 
stood aloof, until a rowdy approached and invited him to 
enter the ring with the dancers. On his declining, a dozen 
came forward prepared to coerce the submission of the 
proud aristocrat. In an instant Mr. Peace with great 
solemnity beckoned the leader of the band aside and whis- 
pered, " my friend be careful how you act. Bless your life, 
that is Mr. Boylan, the man who made the Almanac and 
can foretell eclipses and thunder storms." The reference 
to the Almanac maker secured at-once the most deferential 
respect for the distinguished visitor. 

Mr. Boylan used to relate with great good humor, a story 
connected with another of the oldest merchants, to whom 
reference has been made. 

The late William Glendennin resided and did business 
during many years in the house nearly opposite the old State 
Bank, the recent residence of Col. Wm. J. Clarke. He 
built a meeting house at his own expense at a very early 
period in the history of the city, and during a series of 
years previous to the erection of any other church, minis- 



19 

tered in his peculiar manner at his own altar, without 
earthly fee or reward, to all who chose to hear him. His 
deserted tabernacle was pointed out to me, when I first 
knew Raleigh, standing a little South of the corner, at the 
intersection of Morgan with Blount street. 

I remember to have seen in my early boyhood, his auto- 
biography, recounting numerous conflicts, spiritual and 
physical, with the arch enemy of the human race. His 
little volume is probably out ol print. It would be a rare 
curiosity at the present time in many respects. 

Notwithstanding these vagaries, he was shrewd and sys- 
tematic in business, and in due time accumulated a hand- 
some fortune for that day. His eccentricities increased 
however to such an extent, that a guardianship became 
necessary, and Mr. Boylan was selected as the person pos- 
sessing the requisite nerve and tact to control and manage 

him. 

As soon as Glendennin was apprized of the arrangement, 
his confidential clerk, the late Robert Harrison, was dis- 
patched to invite Mr. Boylan to his house. When he entered, 
Glendennin requested him to take a book from the mantle 
piece, which proved to be the Bible and disclosed at open- 
ing a $50 bill. " The foul fiend was here last night and 

told me that he had come for the soul of old . I 

obtained a year's respite for $50, and the fiend is to take 
the money from that book at midnight.'' Glancing his eye 
inquiringly at Mr. Boylan, " I understand that you are 
my guardian and I wish to know how I am to act and 
what I am to do ?" Mr. Boylan intimated that as little 
change as possible would be made in the management of 
his affairs. " Mr. Harrison will keep the keys, sell goods 
and collect debts as heretofore." " Am I to be master of 



2o 

my own house?" Certainly. " May I invite any one I 
choose into my house ?" Oh yes, just as heretofore. "May 
I order a man out of my house when I don't want him 
here? No sooner had Mr. Boylan given an intimation in 
the affirmative, than Glendennin with a frenzied glare, 
stamping his foot and clenching his fist, cried out, " then 
sir, get out of my house, get out of my house this instant." 
The poor old gentleman died, in the summer of 1816, 
leaving a very pretty property for two nieces in Scotland. 

The recent abstraction of records from the executive and 
other public offices, by persons acting under the authority 
of the Federal Government, renders it impossible to give 
as minute an account of an interesting event as I would 
like to present. As I must relate the circumstances entirely 
from memory, after the lapse of more than thirty years 
from the time the records were at my command, allowance 
must be made for a want of precision especially in relation 
to dates. 

During Governor Ashe's administration, embracing the 
years 1796, '97 and '"98, it was ascertained that numerous 
frauds had been perpetrated in the office of the Secretary 
of State, and the offices of John and Martin Armstrong, 
in the entry and survey of Western lands ; and active ex- 
ertions were made to discover and arrest the offenders in 
this State and Tennessee. It was, I think, in 1797, that a 
confidential messenger was sent by Judges Tatom and 
McNairy from Nashville to the Governor to warn him of 
a conspiracy to burn the State House, in order to destroy 
the records, the production of which, upon the trial, was 
indispensable to the conviction of the offenders. A guard 
was armed and stationed around the Capitol for the next 
two months. 



21 

The communication from Nashville, requested the Gov- 
ernor immediately on its receipt, to erase from the dispatch 
the name of the messenger who bore it, as any discovery 
of his connection with it would lead to assassination. This 
was done so carefully, as to elude every effort on my part 
to restore and ascertain it, thirty years ago, and I have not 
at the present moment the slightest suspicion of the agent 
who overheard the plot of the conspirators in Knoxville, 
and was sent from Nashville to Raleigh on this secret and 
dangerous mission. 

The earliest letter I ever saw from General Jackson was 
in relation to this affair. With his instinctive hatred of 
fraud,, he tendered his services to the Governor in any effort, 
that might be necessary to-arrest the offenders who were 
supposed to have sought refuge in the then Spanish do- 
mains in the direction of Mobile. This letter was on file 
in the executive office in 1835. 

In 1797, according to my remembrance, on the night when 
a ball was given at Casso's to the bridal party, very shortly 
after the second marriage of the Public Treasurer, the fes- 
tivities were interrupted by the hasty entrance of a servant, 
with the information that some one was forcing an entrance 
into the window of the office, where the trunk containing 
the records in question were deposited. He was caught, 
was ascertained to be the slave of one of the persons charged 
with fraud, was convicted of burglary and executed.* 

In 1799 the General Assembly passed the act directing 

the Judges of the Superior Courts to meet together to settle 

*"— On the 27th inst (April 1798) was executed at Kaleigh 
pursuant to his .sentence, PM11 a mulatto man, the servant of William 
Terrel, for robbing the Comptroller's office in the State House of sun- 
dry trunks of papers, deposited there by order of the General Assem- 
bly."— iV. 0. Journal, 303. 



22 

questions of law and equity arising upon their circuits, 
and to provide for the trial of all persons concerned in the 
commission of frauds in the several land offices. This act 
was carefully and skilfully drawn, consisted of fifteen sec- 
tions, and voluminous as it was, contained more than met 
the eye of the ordinary observer — t e germ of the present Su- 
preme Court— notwithstanding the proviso in the closing sec- 
tion, "that this acts shall continue in force from its commence- 
ment only for two years, and from thence to the end of the 
next succeeding General Assembly. " 

Under the provisions of this act Col. James Glasgow, 
the Secretary of S. ate, was indicted for a misdemeanor in 
the fraudulent issue of land warrants. The four Judges of 
the Superior Courts were John Haywood, Spruce Macay, 
John Louis Taylor, Samuel Johnston. Blake Baker was 
Attorney, and Edward Jones, Solicitor General. The latter 
seems to have been mainly relied on to conduct the prose- 
cution. 

The commission under which the Court was held, was 
drawn by Judge Haywood. While on his way to Raleigh 
to meet his brother Judges, he accepted a fee of one thou- 
sand dollars, resigned his seat upon the bench, and undertook 
the defence of Glasgow. 

There has rarely from that day to this, even after the 
resignation of Haywood, an abler tribunal convened on any 
occasion, or for any purpose, than that 'which tried and 
convicted the distinguished culprit. In relation to the ad- 
vocate, the late Judge Hall remarks in a judicial opinion 
delivered in 1828, " I shall not treat with disrespect the 
memory of the dead nor the pretensions of the living, when 
I say that a greater criminal lawyer than Judge Haywood 



23 

never sat upon the bench in North Carolina." The Gene- 
ral Assembly in anticipation of the judgment of the court, 
in 1799 changed the name of the county of Glasgow, erected 
in 1791, to the county of Green. 

Duncan Cameron, at the early age of twenty-three, was 
the clerk, and immediately after the close of the trial, re- 
ported and published, the decisions of the Court in an 
octavo of 108 pages. As I have the only copy, I have ever 
seen of this Brochure the earliest with the exception of 
Martin and first Hay wood, in the entire series of North 
Carolina reports, I give for the benefit of legal antiquarians 
an exact copy of thetitle page: "Reports of cases determined 
by the Judges of the Superior Courts of law and Court of 
Equity of the State of North Carolina, at their meeting 
on the 10th. of June, A. D., 1800, held pursuant to an 
act of the General Assembly for settling questions of law 
and eqnity arising on the circuit — by Duncan Cameron, 
Attorney at law, Raleigh — from the press of Hodge & Boy- 
Ian, printers to the State, 1800." 

In 1800, an act was passed to continue in force the act of 
1799 three years longer. The sessions of the Court by the 
former act, were limited to ten days, they were now ex- 
tended to fifteen days, (Sundays excepted) if the business of 
the court should so require. The third section of the act 
is in the following words : " And be it further enacted tbat 
no attorney shall be allowed to speak or admitted as coun- 
cil in the aforesaid court." The General Assembly must 
have entertained a high opinion of the ability and purity 
of the Bench, and serious misgivings in relation to the 
Cunning and crafty bar of which John Hay wood was the 
leader. 



21 

The late Judge Hall told me that he was present .when 

Joshua Williams, Senator from Buncombe, called upon 
Governor Turner for advice in relation to the extension of 
the lease of life to this high tribunal. The Governor urged 
the continuance of the Court until the other offenders 
could be arrested and tried, and the remaining questions of 
doubt and difficulty in the law be put finally at rest. My 
good Senator, and there were few as good men as he in 
any age of the commonwealth, assented, under entire con- 
viction that a little langer time was necessary to enable the 
Judges to render the law so clear aud certain, that no per- 
plexing questions would arise in future. He was probably 
the more confident of a consumation so devoutly to be 
wished, since the Court was neither to be annoyed nor 
perplexed by the arguments of such lawyers as Haywood. 

Iredell the greatest of Haywood's compeers was in his 
grave. Moore was Iredell's successor on the Supreme 
Court Bench of the UniTed States, and Davie had on the 
21th. of December, 1799, been appointed Envoy Extraor- 
dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States 
to the French Republic as successor of Patrick Henry, who 
had been compelled to decline on account of bodily infirm- 
ity. 

In 180-1, the Court which since 1801 had beeu styled the 
Court of Conference, was made a Court of Record, the 
Judges required to reduce their opinions to writing, to file 
them " and deliver the samem'ya voce in open Court." In 
the following year (1805) the name was changed from 
the Court of Conference to the Supreme Court of North 
Carolina and converted from a temporary to a permanent, 
I hope immortal tribunal in fame as in duration. 



/ ~M% 

t1 si - . ■ 





FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1834. 



NORTH STREET. 



276 

Murllin 



275 

MjirLhn 

Kl'i'.'kdl. 



Th a 

Cobb. 



270 

n... c,,i,i..- 

...1.1 Civil. 

Hogg. 


26!) 1 

Susan S. 
Toll-. 



| 268 
George E 
Badger. 


267 
George E, 

Badger. 





LANE 
261 

II. H. 
Coolii'. 



245 
H. h. 
Cooke. 





259 




25S 






Iti.0u.nl 

243 


% 
B 


Hogg. 
- 242 






Mrs. 
Miller. 1 




Gavin 
Hogg. 





H°;g 
241 



STREET. 
256 

Gavin 
Hogg. 



240 



255 


254 


Bnrl; 


. Square. 


E.LEIG 


I ACADEMV. 


239 


238 



253 

Oeorge E. 
Badger. 


252 

Ul';ii>vi..1l' t 
Society. 


237 

I'.eorra, K. 
Bmlger. 


236 

11 Smith .V 
Kem'K' Dc- 
n.Vt S./y 



251 

Rob't Cnu. 

nona Heir; 

235 

IM. Smith. 



.1 231 


230 1 


Thomas 


Thomas 


| Oobba. 


Cobbs. 


| 21.3 


314 1 


Methodisl 


Thomas ( 


Church. 


Cobbs. 



229 

Jos,:].). A 
William 
Pence. 


' 228 1 
cite 


213 

foie|,h iV 
Willi,.... 
Peace. 


212 
H. H. 

Cool;e 



199 I 198 

C. W. D. I Bernard 
Hutching? ' Dupoy. 



170 % 

S J Pride. 



185 


184 


.Rob't Can 


! Rob't Can. 


non'shcii 


non'a heirs 



154 

Public Lol 



169 

< .1 iJ tlvu: . 



153 

Ib.i/I Can 



152 

W H Hay 
wood, jr. 




HILLSBORO 



167 1 166 

JGBriggs Wm . p 

.....I Wed. 1 . ^, , 
Freeman. Clark. 


151 ! 150 
Win. F. 1 Wm. F. 
Clarke. | Clark. 



l.io 
.1 S Rnbo 
lean and 
R Cannon 


164 

Rob't Can- 
non and 
|Pre». C'h. 


- 


149 


14S 


'M 


Eliza 


[ Eliza 




Taylor. 


' Taylor. 





103 

147 
m Note. 



162 

ow Note. 



137 | 136 

Nelson William] 
Phillips. ; Clark. 



121 
Nelson 
Phillips. 



120 

Tt illiam P. 



135 


134 


Mtaah 


Square. 


119 


118 



HARUETT 


133 
Joseph ft 

Wm Pence 


132 

n.l. Smith 
ai.,1 Marv 
Wheaton 


117 | 116 
Joseph A i Richard 



161 

tl Gorma. 
1Y Jones 
a Wayne. 


160 

din-din n 


145 

See Note 


144 

HHC.ok. 
II Smill. a- 
A Jones. 



39 158 

Ann White Ann White 



143 
James D. 
Rovfiei'. 



157 I 156 

Thomas D. TkomasD, 



HI 

Thomas D. 

j'vr.'.'h-i::. 



155 

C il!, °- Mille. 

O* Wm. H 
tl|Hnywood. 

139 
g[MBryd. 



II Daniel 1' 
fManli 



130 

;e Note, 



! 129 


j 128 




Sally 


aee Note 


Mitchell. 






113 


112 


U. S, KiUj; 


B. S>. King 


.t Priseilhi 




1 B "™ 


Thompson 



Baptist Chinch. 

127 126 
Moore Square. 
Ill 110 



| 125 

j Mary 
| Dudley. 


1 124 

Wesley 
Whilaker. 


| 109 
James G. 
Mitchell. 


108 

llartwell 
Reaves. 



...iV;.' w. 



87 86 

R B Smith. C. Mnlon. 
K. Tucker R. Tuckc 
ftDSledgo!,fcDSled» 



i Buir.ii 



ri.eo. Hun- 

.1 lli.;!'.i,».v 



Susaua 
Blake. 



E^ta.e nl 
Willis 

Rogers. 



..ml Willi.- 
Rogers. 



Samuel 
Couch. 



'i'.l 


68 


Joseph 


Joseph 


Gales. 


Gales. 


53 


52 


Joseph 


William 


Gales, 


Ashley. 



,. M'Gi.lVi 

S M Jctei 

J Bell, 





66 


ILIt,,|,'„,r,| 






> 








H 


50 


W 


Win. H. 


3 


Haywood. 




25 

Robert 

Willi,,,,.-. 



40 
Heirs of 
Robert 
Williams 



Robert 

Willi -. 



39 

Heirs of 
Robert 
Williams. 


38 

Joseph 


23 

Ruffin 
Tucker. 


22 

Eleanor 
Haywood. 



10 
Foster** 



9 

Fosli-r'.s 




8 

Henry 
German. 


Henry 



SOUTH STREET. 



65 | 64 


Ann Clark ft 
Cl.rislo- 
Pnlliam. j „,„,„ 


49 i 48 


Ann , Ann 


Pulliam. i Piilliam. 


STREET. 


33 | 32 


Priscilla 


Priscilla 


Shaw. 


Shnw. 


17 


16 


Priscilla 


Priscilla 


Shnw. 


Shaw. 


STRB-KT. 


4 ) 3 




and Rev. and W, 


Daniel |MTIu 



63 

Neill 


62 1 


S. ['ulliain 

47 


W. Brown. j 

~ 46 


Sally 


William | 


Moses. 


Cbftvis, : 



Heirs of John O. 
Hen. Lane. Rorke. 



45 
,1 Comptoni N 

i'V 

Small. 



and Na.irv ; 

Small Small. 



43 

Edward 



Priscilla Prisrllla 



29 ! 21 
William H William II 
Hnywood. Haywood. 



13 j 1 

William H William 11 
Uayw.od. Haywood. 





27 


Vn 


I'li'-i'tl't 




11 


H 


Hollo- 







123 




Johnson 




Busbee. 


1-3 9 

h 08! 

- M 

h yjr 


107 

Dirk 

bindemnn. 




IP 



wl-crn, Hillsborough Halifax : 



i-l Fayetteville Streets arc ninety-nmc feet wide; theoth?rs sixty-six. Ea:li Lot contains < 



: of land. 



I S. Demolt. Frances Mnrdej, Matthew Shaw . nd Priscilla El.aw. Lot 129. Ficldin- Boasly, Snllv Mitchell, John O. Etoi 

se, Richard Roberts, Lewis Hnlk.ma, i Richard Sni.h, K.lat,, of J,, hn I'. St-adaum. [ienjiimiii 11. Smith, Priscilla Shaw, Willi,,, 



NOTE. -Lot 114, Hcnrv II. Cannon, Beverly Daniel Dunn it Li-., 
Holleman. Lol 180, Wm. i Clark, II. II. Co.. ke. .'.,!, -h M.I J.,hnl'r'i 

hv",'" 1 ' :\;'l• v ;!a l :^-:I,! i ; yv r;;'U , 1 '^.';^fi' , ''; c, v-'^'^ , r : '■ : ' l!:i ^^ J ^ vh^k^:;;^:. v: r ,'^. «: :' : '.'.:: , ; , :. , . , - J .:;:;H;: , v ; , : lt i:;:. ii;;i;.ni ;<;;,;'.!;•:;,.:.:;:;;;, j;,;;;-'^ 

„",; .j ,,: . , '■'■'■ ; , ; ; "' I";. 1 ",';;'"' , l "'" |: " I:: r :,l - J " l » s ''" i T h '- v ' ■'"■^"•- L.HUi ...ukF,,.,.,, I .: Hi,.m Peiw, It Smith ,nd Henry iTnri'CD, 

Be,na,dllui,., : ,,ll,,_ a I „„.,,.. .-.,, S | o I. II ,,,. ln.„, M ,j.,:, .,111 1,!,,, Lot 103, Laurence .t L,„,ay, Jose,,., ami Urn. p .... -. K.I,.,. ,^v , ;,, ir„, c. Tucker, Baffin Tucker, Newl nBank 

jin. 1.1.., II ill. Ui'\ i in:, 1 . 1 [I'.'Viv-ii... i-,. | , I ,i: ,, h :i,M .Slutu B:lli'.. 



:unl Hi.ili'.Tt Cannon's 



Printed by "Walters, Hughes* Company, Raleigh, N. C. 




^LfjKK 



c« 

J. 
tib 

tl 
c 

1 










i 'J 




25 

The Senator from Buncombe, and the great Advocate 
Haywood, removed to Tennessee no great while afterwards. 
The former lived long enough in the midst of the legal 
strife which abounded in that young and rising common- 
wealth to find that the end of controversy like the end of 
the Rainbow was not easily reached, and the latter to reap 
golden harvests of fame and fortune from " the glorious 
uncertainty of the common law." When I first saw the 
Supreme Court in session in June, 1822, Chief Justice Tay- 
lor, the Mansfield of North Carolina jurisprudence, — Judge 
Hall proverbial for integrity, amiability and sound common 
sense, and Judge Henderson, who in genius, judgment and 
power of fascination in social intercourse, was without his 
peer, were the three Judges. William Drew standing on 
the thin partition which divides great wit and frenzy, was 
the Attorney General. Francis L. Hawks who had not yet 
attained the 25th year of his age, had already given favor- 
able promise of future eminence as a member of the New- 
berne bar, and the representative of that town in the General 
Assembly, was the reporter. He was destined however to 
a much wider celebrity in a very different sphere, and for 
many years previous to his death, as a brilliant writer and 
eloquent speaker, had a? higher trans-atlantic reputation 
than any other American divine. 

The bar in attendance in those days was much less 
numerous than at present. He was a young man of rare 
self-complacency, who would imperil a rising reputation in 
a contest with the sages of the profession before that tribu- 
nal. I well remember the remark of a gentleman, second 
as an advocate in the Superior Courts to no one of his 
contemporaries, that he never rose in the Supreme Court 

3* 



26 

•without trembling, and never ventured to do more than 
simply to suggest the principles, and give the names of the 
eases and authorities upon which lie relied.* 

Of those in attendance, Gaston from the East, was facile 
princeps, Archibald Henderson, probabiy the most eloquent 
and successful advocate in criminal defences, who ever 
appeared at the bar in North Carolina, was the great repre- 
sentative of the middle, and Joseph Wilson of the extreme 
West, Judge Murphy and Judge Ruffin represented Hills- 
borough, and Judge Seawell, Gavin Hogg and Moses 
Mordecai the Raleigh circuit. Mr. Badger was just attaining 
the fulness of fame while the youngest of the Superior 
Court Judges, and Peter Browne the head of the bar before 
Mr. Gaston assumed his position, was deciding cases with 
unprecedented facility and dispatch as Chairman of Wake 

County Court. 

Mr.Devereux was the District Attorney for the United 
States. James F. Taylor with the most brilliant prospects, 
died six years afterwards, Attorney General of North 
Carolina at the early age of 37. 

With the present organization of the Supreme Court, in 
January, 1819, commenced a gradual change in the length 
of time consumed in the management of causes, in that 
and the subordinate tribunals which continues to increase 
in an accelerating ratio, and which ought to be diminished. 

The act of 1799 limited the sessions of the Court of Con- 
ference to ten days, the act of 1800 extended them to fifteen 
days exclusive of Sundays. At one time, as we have Been, 
no arguments were allowed, and throughout the entire 
existence of the Court discussions were of necessity com- 
mendably brief. 

*The late Joseph Wilson, Solicitor, for many years of tlie sixth Ju- 
dicial Circuit. 



27 

Peter Browne with an ample fortune and very high, 
reputation, relinquished his professional pursuits at the 
comparatively early age of fifty-five. Selling the Lane 
residence, and his well selected library to his friend Mr. 
Boylan, in the summer of 1818, he returned to Scotland to 
spend the evening of bis life amidst the romantic scenes of 
his native country. An absence of three years proved 
that the ties which bound him to Ealeigh were stronger 
than to his birth place. He came back and resided here 
until hi* death in November, 1832. In 1821, he accepted 
the appointment of Justice of the Peace, and was during 
several years Chairman of Wake County Court 

I remember to have heard him complain of the dilatory 
proceedings of the Courts, and especially of the time law- 
yers were permitted to consume in argument, as a grievous 
innovation on ancient usages and to asseverate most solemn- 
ly that there was one Court in North Carolina where no 
such indulgence would be allowed. All who remember 
his administration, will admit that few and brief were the 
arguments heard in Wake County Court in his &&y. 

My professional experience of ten years, eight at the bar, 
and. two upon the bench, ^closed in December 1832. During 
this period I rode the Morganton, Hillsborough, Raleigh 
and Edenton circuits, and met at intervals nearly every em- 
inent lawyer in the State. I can recall no instance when 
more than a day was occupied with the trial of a cause. 

Judge Cameron the immediate successor of Mr. Browne 
as President of the State Bank was during the last twenty 
years of his life a citizen of Raleigh. He came to the bar 
at the age of 21 in 1798, was appointed Judge in February 
1814., resigned December 1810, engaged immediately in 



28 

agricultural pursuits, and the performance of all the duties 
which properly devolve on eminent citizens in private life, 
and pre-eminently among these was the discharge of the 
duties of Presiding Magistrate of the County Court of 
Orange. 

He had not attained his fortieth year when he retired 
from the bench of the Superior Court. 

During the fifteen years that he practiced law, his pro- 
fessional emoluments were probably greater than fell to the 
lot of any other North Carolina lawyer, at so early a period 
of life, and to none were honors and emoluments more 
justly awarded. 

Mr. Badger alike eminent as a jurist and a statesman, 
following in the wake of Mr. Browne, was during a series 
of years Chairman in Wake, and Chief Justice Iiuffin, (a 
citizen of Raleigh from 1828 to 1834,) simultaneously with 
Mr. Badger's services here, was Chairman of the County 
Court of Alamance. 

Of the eminent lawyers who have appeared at our bar 
during the present century, to no one living or dead, has 
greater length of days, crowned by more brilliant success 
in all the walks of life, been accorded, than to the four great 
men who closed their professional career by the gratuitous, 
graceful, able and impartial discharge of the important 
duties pertaining to the office of Justice of the Peace. 

While I can make no positive averment, I am very con- 
fident in the opinion that during the time that Judges Bad- 
ger, Cameron and Ruffin presided on the Superior and 
County Court bench, no case tried before them ever occupi- 
ed more than a single day. 

Mr Browne, as appears from the grave-yard record,. 



29 

diid at the age of 67. Mr. Badger had entered upon his 
seventy-second and Judge Cameron his seventy -sixth year. 
Chief Justice Puffin in the possession of unimpared intel- 
lectual strength, is an octogenarian. 

In 1806, five years after the conviction of Glasgow, the 
great case of Lord Granville's heirs, versus, Gov. Davie and 
others, which threatened a more extensive confiscation than 
that menaced in our time, was argued before the Federal 
Court in this city by Gaston and Harris for the Plaintiff, 
and Cameron, Woods and Baker for the State of North 
Carolina. Potter, District Judge, charged the Jury: Mar- 
shall, Chief Justice, from personal considerations, peremp- 
torily declining to sit upon the trial. 

Of this case involving most intricate legal questions, and 
the title to property of greater value than any other ever 
litigated before an American tribunal, I eannot speak 
without entering into details, requiring more time than the 
patience of the audience would tolerate. 

Marshall is the only revolutionary Titan I have ever 
seen. With fair opportunities to judge of him as he ap- 
peared upon the bench, and in social intercourse sixteen 
years afterwards, I can pronounce with emphasis, that I 
never expect to look upon, his like again. 

The Governor, the Public Treasurer, the Comptroller, and 
Secretary of State, all the Judges of the Supreme and Superior 
Courts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United- 
States, and the District Judge of North Carolina, with their 
clerks and marshalls, and all the members of the bar 
chronicled as in attendance upon both courts in May and 
June, 1822, with the exception of Judge Puffin and Mr. 
Devereux have passed to that bourne from whence no 
traveller returns., 



30 

I sometimes feel apprehensive that I will become old 
myself before a great while, when my memory recurs to 
the time when the Chief Justice was one of the promising 
young men of my day. In 1822, when a student in Chief 
Justice Taylor's office, occupied by Mr. Gaston during the 
sessions of the Federal and Supreme Courts, Ithiel Town, 
the architect who planned the present Capitol, and who 
had an important suit pending in the Federal Court against 
the Clarendon Bridge Company, inquired of Mr. Gaston 
whether Mr. Ruffin would be acceptable to him as associate 
council. He replied: " No one more so, Mr. Ruffin is a 
very promising young man, and if he lives ten years longer 
will be at the head of the profession." The prediction was 
fully verified at an earlier date. 

My young friend, Gov. Manly with his young wife, was 
at this era in their very hey-day of connubial existence, and 
I a boy, peering at them as they passed with almost awfnl 
admiration and reverence. 

The senior partner in the proprietorship of this Hall, 
who ought in my opinion long since to have been the part- 
ner of somebody else, must pardon me for intimating that 
it is high time that the authors of historical discourses were 
returning to the style of writing adopted by the Father of 
History. Rarely since the completion of the Pentateuch 
has full historic justice been meted out to woman. 

The character of the great father is not more fully and 
clearly delineated by Moses than that of the baeutiful 
mother of the human race. The termagant Sarah received 
quite as much attention as the father of the faithful. Hagar 
is the heroine of an episode, the most beautiful in the annals 
of history, with the single exception of the narrative of the- 



31 

maternal tenderness of Naomi and the filial love and devo- 
tion of Ruth, the fascinating little widow, whose charms diss- 
olved the obdurate celibacy of the sage, opulent and stately 
Boaz. Th'~ crafty and managing Rebecca is finely contrasted 
with the confiding Isaac, and the beautiful Rachel from the 
moment that Jacob gave his first kiss u and lifted up his 
voice and wept," as a bride and a mother with Joseph at 
her side in his little coat of many colors and his stainless 
virtue, constitutes in life and in death, the most charming 
picture on the historical canvass of any age or country. 

Why are not similar pictures presented in modern times ! 
Moses was inspired. Subjects are not wanting worthy of 
historic inspiration. Has an abler monarch than Elizabeth, 
or a more estimable sovereign than Yictoria ever given 
character and strength and grace to the British throne ? 
Was " the man of destiny" superior to Josephine? Is the 
Empress of France inferior to Napoleon the Third ? 

W^e are told that the heroic Wolf while passing down the 
St. Lawrence on his way to glory and the grave, closed the 
recitation, of the inimitable " elegy on a country church 
yard," with the remark that he would gladly exchange all 
the renown he had acquired or hoped to achieve for the 
fame of the authorship f of those verses, and yet Gray 
makes no reference to the spot where all the mothers of the 
hamlet sleep. 

I have recently wandered through your cemetery, pausing 
and lingering here and there, at the tombs of familiar 
acquaintances and intimate friends, ;.nd realized the truth, 
that if I could summon the departed around me, I would 
stand in the midst of more numerous friends than I meet 
at the present day in the crowded streets of your living 
city. 



32 

I trust I shall be suspected of no want of gallantry to 
the living if I venture to intimate that among the nymphs 
that illuminate the page of memory and imagination, I 
find pictures of beauty and grace and refinement quite 
equal to the best specimens of modern times, or even in 
poetic hallucination, " some brighter days than modern 
days, some fairer maids than living maids." 

Capt. Peace reposes by the side of his aged brother 
without as yet a stone to tell his name. He was I suppose 
at the time of his death, the oldest citizen of Raleigh, as 
well as the oldest man who has passed from the living city, 
to the city of the dead. 

I have never yet met with a man whom I supposed to be 
a hundred years old. Various colored persons have repre- 
sented themselves of greater age, but their computations 
would not bear scrutiny. The late William Henry Haywood, 
the elder, died at the age of 87, and Mrs. Haywood in J||r 
90th. year. The honored name of their only son, the rate 
Senator in r Congress, was given at the baptismal font to the 
senior proprietor of the Hall, in admiration of early promise 
by a discerning father. The suit of clothes presented to the 
child by the Senator in acknowledgment of the compliment, 
is in a state of perfect preservation, and will be kept as an 
interesting illustration of the habits and customs of other 
days. We are to be instructed by grave lectures in every 
department of science and art; shall we not have a minature 
museum, a portrait gallery and a niche for the preservation 
of specimens of the antique, among which the best bib and 
tucker of earlier times may find an appropriate place ? 

John Rex was one of the earliest citizens of Raleigh. My 
acquaintance with him was slight. In appearance he 



33 

was said to bear striking resemblance to John Quincj 
Adams. He was a grave, sedate, quiet, retiring, modest 
man, not unlike in character to his worthy contemporary 
"William Peck. By long years of industry, economy and 
thrift in the management of the first tannery established in 
.Raleigh at the Rex's spring, near the rail-way station, he 
accumulated a handsome estate, and like Mr. Peace, atoned 
for his failure to build up a family, by a liberal provision for 
the children of misfortune and want. cHe manumitted all 
his slaves at the close of life, and bequeathed the remainder 
of his estate to the endowment of a hospital, the construc- 
tion of which is understood to be in early prospect. 

The Rex Hospital and Peace Institute, the latter far 
advanced towards completion, will constitute the appropri- 
ate and enduring monuments of these public benefactors. 
Mr. Eex died 29th. of January, 1839, aged 74 years. 

As scant justice is done to the memory of the ladies who 
repose in the cemetery as is accorded to their sex on the 
page of modern history. The memorials are few, and the in- 
formation given comparatively meager. 

Of the 89 Counties in North Carolina, nearly all perpet- 
uate the names of men.* Two only, Wake and Jones, are 
graced with the maiden names of women, the wives of 
Governor Tryon and Governor Nash. Tennessee has done 
better. William Blount, appointed by Governor Caswell to 
succeed him in the Convention which framed the Federal 
constitution in 1787, was the first Governor of the South- 
Western Territory, and one of the first Senators in Congress 
from Tennessee. He was born in Beaufort County, and mar- 
ried Mary Grainger of New Hanover. Their names are as 
intimately interwoven in history as their hearts and hands in 



34 

wedlock. Wo find upon the map of that State, Mary ville, 
in Blount County, and Blountsville in Grainger County. 

There are not less significant indications of the want of 
liberality from the sterner toward the gentler sex. Four- 
fifths of the wills that I have had occasion to construe, 
give to the dear wife a portion oi the estate pared down 
to the narrowest limit that the law will allow, " during life 
or widowhood." So universal and inveterate is this 
phraseology, that a somewhat famous parson in the County 
of Gates, some years ago, at the funeral of the husband, 
poured forth a most fervent supplication, that the bereaved 
wife might " be blessed in her basket and her store during 
life or widowhood." 

I know but a single instance, the will of a distinguished 
American statesman, Gouvemeur Morris, which provides a 
largely increased annuity to the widow in case of a second 

marriage. 

The stone which stands nearest, in the cemetery, to the 
monument of Jacob Johnson informs us that Thomas Sam- 
borne died on the 4th, of December, 1807. He was an 
Englishman, and the first instructor in music and the kindred 
arts in Raleigh. A day or two before his death he received 
two pianos manufactured in London, ordered one for the 
late Joseph Gales, the other for the late AVilliam White. 
The latter is still in lialeigh, and deserves a place in the 
Tucker Museum. 

Jacob Marling was the first portrait and landscape painter, 
and various specimens of his art are now extant, among 
others a picture of the State House as it was anterior to the 
fire of 1831. It graces the parlor of Dr. F. J. Haywood. 

Sixty years upon this evidence carries us back to the date 
of the earliest cultivation of these arts in Raleigh. Most 



o5 

of what in the nomenclature of the present day, are termed 
the ornamental branches of education, can claim no earlier 
origin. 

It is an interesting inquiry what constituted, and what was- 
the comparative value of the education of our mothers. 

The curriculum i& more extended now, but was not the 
knowledge of the few branches to which attention was 
directed more thorough then ? Take the specimen I have 
before me now, in the well know hand writing of the late 
Mrs. Winifred Gales, observe the penmanship, the spellings 
the punctuation, the diction. Examine the sixteen signa- 
tures appended, and perhaps if you shall be disposed to 
turn out to-morrow in quest of the lady who can prepare, 
and sixteen others who can affix such signatures, to such a 
testimonial of affection for science and the arts, it may be 
prudent to make some inquiries in advance, instead of 
risking random applications. It bears date ISTovember 29th, 
1802. Allow me to read it : 

" TO THE REV. JOSEPH CALPWELL, PRESIDING PROFESSOR AT 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

Sir: — The ladies of Raleigh learning that the globes 
belonging to the University, are too much defaced to be use- 
ful, respectfully present the Institution with a new pair, 
twelve inches in diameter, with the latest discoveries, with 
a compass, which they entreat you Sir, to present in their 
name. 

Sensible of the literary advantage^, which the rising 
generation will derive from this valuable Seminary of 
learning, they beg leave to express their affectionate wishes, 
that it may continue to advance in the estimation of the 
public, as well from the ability of the Professors, as the 



86 

acquirements of the students, who, bringing into public life, 
the knowledge and experience they have there imbibed, 
may at once be a credit to the State of North Carolina, a 
crown of honor to their parents, and a blessing to them- 
selves. 

May the past present and the future students distinguish 
themselves in society, no less by their literary attainments, 
than by a virtuous course of conduct, which giving addi- 
tional lustre to talents, will render them at once useful and 
honorable members of society. 

We are with great respect, your obedient servants, 
S. W. Potter, Margarett Casso, E. H. P. Smith, 

Eliza E. Haywood, Eliza Williams, Nancy Haywood, 
Sarah Polk, Nancy Bond, Priscilla Shaw, 

Anna White, Hannah Paddisson Itebecea Williams, 

Martha McKeethen, Susanna Parish, Winifred Mears, 
Ann O'Bryan. 

Most of the signers were alive twenty years thereafter, 
and some of them familiarly known to me. 

Examine the chirography of the first four names and 
trace their history. Is it certain that any four gentlemen 
in this city, rendered more substantial services to the com- 
munity than Mrs. Gales, Mrs. Potter, Mrs. Polk and Mrs. 
E. E. Haywood in their several spheres, with their several 
opportunities. 

The name of Fanny Devereux then of Newbern, subse- 
quently for many years of Raleigh, is appended to a similar 
paper from Newberne of just a year later date. Who 
founded and fostered during many years the Benevolent 
Society ? Who originated the now forgotton Lancastrian 
school, which in the changed condition of society ought to 
be revived ? 



37 

Mrs. Polk first suggested the Experimental Rail Eoad,f 
on which all the stone for the construction of the i apitol 
was transported from the quarry, and afforded ocular dem- 
onstration to the General Assembly of what might be done 
on a larger scale of operation. 

Mrs. Devereux was the lineal descendant of Thomas 
Pollock, President of the Council and virtually the Govern- 
or of Albemarle in 1712 and again in 1724, and in the 
maternal line of the great American metaphysician Johna- 
than Edwards. 

I saw her first in my native village fifty years ago, en- 
gaged in the distribution of Religious tracts and similar 
acts of beneficence and mercy, and know that a true 
history of her life would be a continuous narrative of 
charitable deeds. 

The parsonage connected with the Presbyterian Church 
in this place is an instance and illustration familiar to all 
of you. She went about doing good. 

Her youngest child and only daughter, Mrs. Fanny Polk, 
is the widow of Lieut. Gen. Polk, whose history I have 
recently had occasion to trace in connection with that of the 
President of the United States. Mrs. Polk in the 
mysterious dispensations of Providence, like Mrs. Governor 
Alston, the accomplished sister of the late James L. Petti- 
grew of Charleston, bereft of fortune, bereft of those dearer 
than life, retired not as in mediaeval times to a convent, 
bus assumed the most useful and honorable of stations, the 
headship of a Literary Institution of established reputation. 

1 must not close this historical summary of noble deeds 

fThe first specimen of a railroad in North Carolina, and of which 
Capt. D. H. Bingham, subsequently of Alabama, was the engineer. 

4= 



38 

by noble women without a reference to the noblest charity 
of the city and the State, the Dix Hill Hospital, and a 
distinct and grateful admission of the truth, that we are in- 
debted for it, more than to any other cause, to the inspira- 
tion of a lady from another and distant State. 

Citizens of Raxeigh — It has been well said that they 
who have no reverence and affection for the memory of their 
ancestors can make no just claim to the remembrance of 
posterity, and that history is philosophy teaching by exam- 
ple. 

The following narrative of the celebration of the Thirty- 
third anniversary of American Independence, is from the 
pen of General Calvin Jones, one of the most useful men of 
his day. A careful examination of all the details will pre 
sent to the mind a more life-like picture of what your city 
was in all the aspects of society in 1809 than can pobsibly 
be produced by the most elaborate attempt at description 
by a modern pen. Compare and contrast it with the scenes 
exhibited and the events which occurred on an anniversary 
fifty-eight years thereafter, and in due time make suitable 
preparation for the proper observance of a day still dear to 
every patriotic bosom. The proprietors of this Hall will 
most cheerfully open it for the purpose of reviving an old 
and inaugurating a new era in the history of the city. 

" The Thirty-third anniversary of American Indepen- 
dence was celebrated in this city in the usual manner on 
the 4th inst. At 12 o'clock a procession of citizens and 
strangers with Capt. Willie Jones' troop of Cavalry at the 
head, formed at the Court House — agreeably to previous 
arrangements, and directed by Capt. Scott, proceeded up 
Fayetteville street to the State House, during the ringing of 



39 

the State House, Court House, Academy and Tow.i bells 
and firing of cannon. Being seated in the Common's 
Chamber, an ode in honor of the day, composed for the oc- 
casion, was sung by a choir of about 70 voices, conducted 
by Mr. Seward, accompanied by a band of instrumental 
music." 

The Rev. Mr. Turner then rose and delivered an oration 
of the merits of which we shall at present forbear to speak as 
we intend to solicit a copy lor publication, and hope in our 
next to be able to present it as a very acceptable treat to 
our readers. At the conclusion another patriotic ode was 
sung." 

" At 3 o'clock the company sat down to an excellent 
dinner prepared by Mr. Casso at the State House, at which 
Col. Polk and Judge Potter presided. Seventeen appro- 
priate toasts were drunk, among which we note the follow- 
ing. 'The President of the United States may his admin- 
istration close as it has commenced, with the applause and 
general approbation of the people. 

"George Washington the hero, patriot, statesman, friend 
and father of his country, the memory of his inestimable 
worth and services will never cease to be revered by the 
American people." 

"Literature the arts and sciences the precursors of national 
greatness and universal happiness." 

"The University of ISForth Carolina^may thepeople see and 
fully understand the great interest they have in this Insti- 
tution, and before it is too late duly foster and endow it." 

"The constitution of North Carolina, the happy, wise and 
revered work of our ancestors, long may it remain sacred 
and inviolate." 



40 

"The social circles of life, may no discordant interests or 
variant opinions be suffered to destroy their harmony."' 

The Supreme Court of the State being in session, the 
celebration was honored with the presence of the Judges, 
gentlemen of the bar and many other characters of respec- 
tability from almost every part of the State. 

" In the evening a ball was given to the ladies." 

" In the morning Mr. James J. McKay a student of the 
Academy delivered by appointment of the Polemic Society, 
before the students and a number of citizens, an oration 
which we are informed was a classic and eloquent composi- 
tion, and was delivered in a manner that did honor to the 
taste and talents of the youthful orator."* 

Of all the joyous throng that crowded these streets at that 
national jubilee fifty-eight years ago, whose bosoms thrilled 
responsive to the patriotic sentiments of the orator of the 
day, or who gathered round the festive board, — of all the 
gallant men and beautiful women who united in the exult- 
ant song or chased the flying hours io that evening's dance, 
there is probably not one present now, not one to con- 
trast the spectacle then presented of a great free, united and 
happy people, with their discordant, dissevered relations in 
1867. 

" A King sat on bis rocky throne 
Which looked on sea-born Salamis, 

*Gen. McRay was born in Bladen County in 1793. He was a suc- 
cesstul lawyer, an opulent planter, a conspicuous senator from Bladen 
at intervals from 1815 to 1831, a member of the House of Representa- 
tives in the Congress of the United States from 1831 to 1849 and 
during several sessions the able and indefatigable chairman of the 
committee of Ways and Means. See 2nd, Wheeler's Historical 
Sketches, p 43. 



41 

And ships by thousands lay below 

An3 men in nations ; — all were his ! 
He counted them at break of day — , 

And when the sun set, where were they ? 

And where are they — and where ait thou 

My country ? On thy voiceless shore, 
The statesman's tongue is silent now, 

The heroic bosom beats no more !" 

Let us hope that when we meet here on the 4th July 
1868, Southern voices will again have been heard in the 
halls of Congress, and that millions of Southern hearts, as in 
former days, will be prepared to respond "Liberty and Union, 
now and forever, o$te s and inseparable." 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED ON 



TUESDAY the Uh of JUNE, 1867, 



ERECTION OF THE MONUMENT 



TO 



JACOB JOHNSON. 



IN THE 



BALEIGH CEMETERY 



DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE COM- 
PLETION OF THE MONUMENT TO THE MEM- 
ORY OF JACOB JOHNSON, FATHER OF PRES- 
IDENT JOHNSON. 

The County of Wake, erected in 1772, perpetuates the 
maiden name of the amiable and accomplished wife of 
Governor Tryon. The County of Tryon was established 
the preceding year, and became, ten years thereafter, the 
enduring memorial of the revolutionary General Lincoln. 
The name of Tryon has been expunged from the map of 
the State, but not from the memories of men. The unen- 
viable fame of the royal Governor, and the good name of 
Lady Wake, uneffaced and ineffaceable by the tide of revo- 
lution, are alike immortal. 

The city of Raleigh is the beautiful and appropriate 
monument erected by the new, to one of the most illustri- 
ous political martyrs of the old world, and by North Car- 
olina to the author of the first attempt at colonization 
within her borders. 

On the fourth of April, 1792, Colonel Joel Lane convey- 
ed to the State one thousand acres of land immediately 
contiguous to his residence at Wake Court House. 
Four hundred acres were divided into 176 lots and five 
squares. Union, on which the State House stands, is the 
central square. The other four bear the names of four dis- 



tinguished revolutionary soldiers and statesmen, Caswell, 
Burke, Nash and Moore 

The position of Colonel Lane in the society of that day, 
and as the founder of the city, will justify a somewhat par- 
ticular reference to his personal history. He was one of 
three brothers, Joel, Joseph and Jesse, who removed from 
the vicinity of Halifax, on the Roanoke, more than a hun- 
dred years ago, to the comparative wilderness in Johnston 
County, where we now stand. His dwelling, the residence 
of the Jate William Boylan, Esq., erected some years pre- 
vious to the foundation of Raleigh, was considered, at the 
time, a rare specimen of architectural elegance. He was 
fhe oldest, the wealthiest, and the most widely known of 
the three brothers. He was a member of the Provisional 
Convention called by Samuel Johnston, which met at 
Hillsborough on the 21st of August, 1775, in defiance of 
the proclamation of Governor Martin, issued twelve days 
in advance, forbidding the assemblage " in the heart of the 
Province," " of a body of men with the purpose of extend- 
ing more widely the traitorous and rebellious designs of 
the enemies of his Majesty and his government," denouncing 
the resolves of a " set of people styling themselves a Com- 
mittee of the County of Mecklenburg, most traitorously 
declaring the dissolution of the laws, government and 
Constitution of the country," and the address of William 
Hooper, Joseph Hewes, and Richard Caswell to the citis 
of the Province as " a publication, the preposterous en 1 
mity of which cannot be adequately described and abhol 
red." The Convention responded by a Resolution that th« 
proclamation should be burned by the common hangman,' 
as a false, scandalous, scurrilous, mischievous and seditious 
libel. 



The General Assembly of this most rebellious of Provinces, 
amidst the darkest hours of the revolution, met at the 
house of Joel Lane, in June, 1781, and elected Thomas 
Burke, one of the most eminent of the men of revolution- 
ary renown, the third Governor of the State. Col. Lane 
was, at the time, Senator of Wake, and continued, with 
the exception of a single session, to represent the County 
in the Senate during the succeeding fourteen years and 
until his death in 1795. 

Shortly subsequent to the conveyance to the State of the 
site for the seat of government, he tendered to the Trustees 
of the University the liberal donation of his plantation 
adjoining White Plains, as an inducement to locate the 
Institution within five miles of the Capitol, 

A recent historian, Chaplain George W. Pepper, who 
lias occasion to refer to the history of Raleigh, in connection 
with the triumphant march and occupancy of the city by 
Sherman's army, speaks of Col. Lane as the progenitor of 
the late Senator from Kansas. This is a mistake. General 
Joseph Lane, late Senator from Oregon, the candidate for 
the Vice Presidency on the Breckenridge ticket, Governor 
Henry S. Lane, late* Senator from Indiana, and the late 
Hon. George W. Lane,T)istrict Judge of the United States 
for Alabama, were three cousins, the grandsons of Jesse, 
and great nephews of Colonel Joel Lane. 

North Carolina has been said to be a good State to 
remove from. The compliment seems to be pre-eminently 
due to the County of Wake. The late William White was 
appointed Secretary- of State in 1798. About the time of 
his removal to Raleigh, he purchased three plantations in 
the neighborhood of the City, of moderate value. Bur- 
well Yick, who conveyed one, is understood to have been 



6 

the founder of the City of Vicksburg ; a second was, in 
1790, the residence of Robert Orr, the father of the present 
Governor of South Carolina, and the third the residence 
of Osborne Pape Nicholson, the father of the Hon. A. O. 
P. Nicholson, late Senator in Congress from Tennessee. 

The reference to the foundation of the city, in connection 
with subsequent details, may enable us to understand more 
clearly, and appreciate more accurately, the claims to 
consideration of the individual to whose memory we con- 
secrate this obelisk. 

The corner stone of the old State-house was laid early 
in 1792, and the General Assembly met within its walls 
for the first time 31st. of December, 1794. The not very 
rapid growth of the city during the three first years ot its 
chartered existence may be inferred, and an approximate 
idea of its extent derived, from an editorial article copied 
from the North Carolina Journal, published at Halifax, on 
the 15th. of January, 1795 : 

" "We learn, from a gentleman of the first respectability 
at Raleigh, that the accommodations at that place during 
the present session have exceeded all expectation, and that 
comfortable boarding could now be furnished for at least 
one hundred persons more." 

The late Joseph Gales published the first number of 
" The Raleigh Register " in the autumn of 1799. Hodge 
& Boylan transferred u The Fayetteville," changed to "The 
Raleigh Minerva,'" from Fayetteville to Raleigh, a few 
months thereafter, and Jones & Henderson issued the first 
number of " The Star " Tuesday, 3rd. October, 1809. 

In March, 1810, we find the following indication ol the 
primitive condition of society in the political metropolis, 
William White, Esq., Secretary of State and Secretary of 



the Trustees of the Raleigh Academy, publishes in their 
behalf an advertisement beginning with the following 
announcement : " The Trustees of the Raleigh Academy 
have the pleasure to inform the pnblic, that they have 
engaged the Rev. William McPheeters, from Virginia, a 
gentleman eminently qualified for the undertaking, to 
become the Principal of the Academy, and Pastor of the 
City, and that he will certainly enter upon these important 
duties on or about the first of May next." 

This happy state of Christian unity and Christian charity 
continued for some years. Notwithstanding the severance 
of Church and State contemplated by the constitutions of 
the State and of the United States, the Christian religion 
was properly considered a part of the common law. The 
State House was the church of the city, and the only church 
in the city, and the late Rev. Dr. McPheeters, the Pastor, 
and the only Pastor, of the church and city. Nearly a 
quarter of a century has elapsed since this good man passed 
to his reward, but there are still thousands in the State and 
city who cherish his memory with no ordinary feelings of 
veneration and respect. I knew him personally during 
many years, and can truly testily that I have rarely known 
a character possessed of such numerous and decided traits 
of excellence. Pious, without asceticism, intolerance or 
bigotry, — firm, but not obstinate, in the maintenance of 
his opinions, — cheerful, without stooping to frivolity,— easy 
of approach, kind and conciliatory in manner, — but a lion 
when courage, moral or physical, was required, he was 
eminently qualified to fill the extraordinary office of City 
Pastor. His Holiness of Rome does not, perhaps, feel 
himself more at ease in his supremacy in the Eternal City, 
than did Dr. McPheeters in Raleigh before the establish- 

5 



men! of separate churches. His own denomination is 
chargeable with the earliest abandonment of the State 
House. The Presbjiierian church was built in 1817. Two 
others, the Methodist and Baptist, were added before my 
earliest acquaintance with the City. 

During- Me. Johnson's day the bell which summoned the 
General Assembly to the discharge of their public duties, 
and the pious of every shade of opinion to their devotions, 
was the only bell in the city. The graveyard was without 
enclosure ; a public road ran through it, and the rude stone 
with the meagre inscription at the head of his grave, dis- 
placed by this more appropriate monument, was quite equal, 
perhaps superior, to the ordinary memorials of wealthier 
and more conspicuous men. 

The number of the white population of Raleigh in April, 
1811, nine months previous to Mr. Johnson's death, seems, 
from a published record, a copy of which is before me, 
presenting the names of all white males above the age of 
21 years, to have been not more than six or seven hundred. 
At that date John S. Raboteau, William Jones and Mark 
Cook, acting under the authority of the Commissioners 
arranged the white males above the age of 21 years in 
twenty classes, without the omission, as I suppose, of any 
other name than that of Dr. McPheeters. 

William Yfhite, Secretary of State. John Haywood, Pub- 
lic Treasurer, and Henry Potter, Judge of the District Court 
ot the United States, are privates under the leadership of 
one of the following twenty Captains: 1. Isaac Lane; 2. 
William Peace ; 3. William Scott ; 4. William Boylan ; 5. 
Joseph Gales ; 6. Thomas Emond ; 7. Southey Bond; 8. 
John Wyatt; 9. Joseph Peace ; 10. Samuel Goodwin; 11. 
Beverly Daniel ; 12. William Peck ; 13. Willis Sogers ; 14. 



Sherwood Haywood ; 15. "William Jones ; 16. John S. Bab- 
oteau ; 17. James Coman ; 18. Benjamin S. King ; 19. 
Kobert Gannon ; 20. Jacob Johnson. 

The most prominent names in connection with the news- 
paper press are to be found in classes Nos. 5. and 12. 
Joseph Gales, Senior Editor of the Raleigh Register, had 
for his subordinates in number 5. John Stewart, (Merchant) 
Will am W. Seatou, Coleman Miller, Daniel Peck, and 
Benjamin Pulliam, Jr. 

William Peck was followed by Robert Harrison, Hardy 
Sanders, Thomas Henderson, Alexander Lucas and John 
Dodd. 

Jacob Johnson, at the head of number twenty, was asso- 
ciated with Daniel Beard, Henry B. Mears and Wm, P. 
Perrell. 

The City Church presents no more striking indication of 
republican symplicity of manners, of the absence of aristo- 
cratic distinctions, and of the spirit of kindness which char- 
acterized all social intercourse, than the arrangement of 
the City Watch. 

The newspaper press affords still more conclusive evi- 
dence of universal charity and good will among all classes 
of society. The venerable Joseph Gales was the senior of 
the editorial fraternity in years and journalistic experience. 
No one that knew him ever thinks of him but as the imper- 
sonation of kindness, benevolence and charity. His oldest 
son, Joseph Gales, Jr., was then at Washington, the editor 
of the National Intelligencer. The removal of Mr. Seaton, 
the son-in-law of the elder, and brother-in-law of the junior 
Joseph Gales, a few months afterwards transferred the 
names of Gales and Seaton from the head of the Register 
to the Intelligencer, and the Register, returning to its orig- 



II) 

inal status, with Joseph Gales, Si\, as editor, continued the 
assurance so familiar to newspaper readers of the last gen- 
eration : — 

" Ours are the plans of fair, delightful peace, 
Unwarped by party rage, to live like brothers. " 

Raleigh in this instance gave to Washington City a brace 
of editors trained in the office of the Raleigh Register, who 
published during nearly half a century a paper that for 
ability, fairness, courtesy, dignity, purity and elegance of 
style, was pronounced by a competent judge to compare 
favorably with the London Times, and certainly to be sec- 
ond to no Gazette in this country. 

Alexander Lucas was at that time the editor of the Mi- 
nerva. He was one of the few compositors in any country 
able to set in type the sparkling paragraphs which graced 
his editorial columns, without previously arranging his 
thoughts in writing. 

I have no files of the Register, or Minerva, at hand for 
the year previous to Me. Johnson's death, but I have a com- 
plete volume of the Star, beginning with the 5th of Janu- 
ary and closing with the 27th of December, 1811. 

We were on the verge of a war with Great Britain. The 
most exciting topics agitated the public mind then as now. 
There were party questions, a majority and a minority. 
Though but ten years old, I read the Star, from week to 
week during that year with intense interest. I have just 
refreshed my memory by a pains-taking examination of the 
editorial columns. It was a weekly paper, containing not 
more than two thirds of the reading matter found at pres- 
ent in the Tri-Weekly Standard, the Daily Progress or the 
Daily Sentinel. The editorials are comparatively few in num- 
ber, and all the original articles under the Raleigh head 



11 

rarely exceeded half a column in extent. The obituary 
articles especially are cornmendably brief and modest. The 
one to which I will have occasion to call your attention in the 
course ot my remarks occupies more than the average space 
afforded to the most distinguished individuals who passed 
away during the year. 

A more remarkable characteristic of the journalism of 
that period, and less in keeping with the character of the 
present times, is that there is not during the year a single 
unkind editorial remark, much less disparaging epithet, not 
even a discourteous allusion to any one of the editors of the 
Register and Minerva. On the twelfth of July, the oration 
delivered on the Fourth by Mr. Lucas, the senior editor of 
the Minerva, is published, in extenso, in the Star, with a 
brief editorial commendation closing with the following 
remarks : " The oration needs none of our praise. We 
only hope it , will gain the attentive perusal of all who 
have a relish for the beauties of strong and polished lan- 
guage, when employed to enforce correct and noble senti- 
ments." 

It was in the midst of such society that Jacob Johnson 
lived and moved and had his being. 

Raleigh was just twenty years old at the time of his 
death. My first knowledge of the City dates ten years 
later. I entered the law office of the late Chief Justice 
Taylor in 1822. I have been familiar with the City from 
that driy to this, and have enjoyed better opportunities in 
the intervening period, than most non-residents, to form 
correct opinions of men in public and private life. Society 
was at that day, no doubt, in ordinary estimation, greatly 
more refined and intelligent than in 1812. There were 
three churches, several schools, and the same three news- 



12 

papers, with more youthful editors, more sprightly and 
spicy editorials. William Peace, Chief Justice Taylor, 
Judge Seawell, Judge Potter, Joseph Gales, Wm. Boylan, 
Beverly Daniel, John, Sherwood, William H. and Stephen 
Haywood, Gen. Calvin Jones, Secretary Hill and Col.Wm. 
Polk, who gave tone to society in its early days, exercised 
commanding influence even then. 

There was less semblance of aristocracy then than now, 
much more conviviality and familiar association. In Me. 
Johnson's time game had not entirely disappeared from the 
forests. Hunting, fishing, and, under the leadership of Gen. 
Beverly Daniel, deer driving and the fox chase, were amuse- 
ments sometimes indulged in by the gravest members of 
society. Governor Turner and Treasurer Haywood, on 
horseback, accoutered with guns, shot pouches, horn and 
hounds, were conspicuous examples in their day. I 
maimers were comparitiveiy rude, it does not follow that 
the miscellaneous tea parties at which Mrs. Ga ! es and other 
intellectual ladies mingled with the young and beautiful — 
the crowning of May Queens — fishing parties on Crabtree, 
winding up with a dance in the paper mill, were sources 
of less exquisite enjoyment than the more refined pastimes 
of the more select circles of later days. Shooting matches, 
where fat beef was lost and won, once as common in the 
rural districts as base ball clubs threaten to become at pres- 
ent, passed quietly into disuse amidst the exciting events of 
the war, and have been little known since 1812. But Fourth- 
of-July dinners spread in the State House by Mrs. Casso, 
from the corner, or Capt, Scott from the Indian Queen, with 
as many standing toasts as there were States in the Union, 
and all the States were in the Union in those days, with the 
Governor for the time being, and Col. Polk always, as pre- 



siding officers, were jubilees to be remembered for a life 
time. These were occasions when the services of Jacob 
Johnson were always put in requisition, and were so ren- 
dered as to make him a universal favorite., In these out 
door sports no one entered more freely and joyously than 
Colonel Henderson, then the editor of the Star. I remem- 
ber on my first acquaintance with Raleigh to have heard 
the opinion expressed on repeated occasions that no citizen 
had succeeded in conciliating the warm regards of a greater 
number of personal friends than he. He was the man of 
all others to attract Jacob Johnson, and the man to whom 
of all others in the same sphere Johnson was calculated to 
be the most acceptable. It was one of the merry makings 
so frequent in those days, in the spring of 1810 or 1811, 
that Johnson, by a deed of noble daring, saved the lives 
of Henderson and Oallum, at the ultimate cost oi his own. 
The late venerable William Peace, a citizen of Raleigh 
from 1795 to the time of his death, which occurred at the 
house of his friend and connection, Governor Holden, on the 
11th of July, 1865, in the 93d year of his age, shortly previous 
to his death wrote and transmitted to me the following ac- 
count of the transaction. I repeat the narrative substanti- 
ally in the language of the manuscript : "At a large 
fishing party at Hunter's Mill pond on Walnut creek, near 
Raleigh, upwards of fifty years ago, the late Colonel Hen- 
derson proposed for amusement a little skim in the canoe 
on the pond. He, a young Scotch merchant named Callum, 
and myself, entered the canoe. Henderson was helmsman 
and knew that neither Callum nor my self could swim. He 
soon began to rock the canoe, so as at times to dip water, 
and just above the pier head of the mill bore so heavily on 
the end where he was sitting as to tilt and turn it over, 



14 

throwing all three into the pond. Callum caught hold of 
me. I begged him to let go, I could not swim. He did 
so, and seized Henderson, and both sank to the bottom in 
ten feet water. I struggled and kept myself above water 
until they came to my assistance from the shore and carried 
me out. A cry was then made for Henderson and Callum. 
Jacob Johnson was standing on the pier head. Without 
a moment's hesitation he leaped into the pond, dived m the 
direction of where he saw them sink, caught hold of Hen- 
derson and brought him up. In an instant a dozen swim- 
mers were in the water from the shore to assist in bringing 
Henderson out, and Callum with him, who was clinging to 
the skirt of Henderson's coat underneath, and at the mo- 
ment invisible." Fortunately for the sufferers, the late 
General Calvin Jones, Henderson's partner, was on shore. 
He was an eminent and able physician and surgeon, and 
the most efficacious means for the relief of the apparently 
drowned men were promptly applied. Henderson was 
soon able to speak, but life was, to ordinary observers, 
extinct in Callum, who was longer under the water. After 
an anxious interval of painful suspense he exhibited signs 
of life, was restored, and lived to marry and rear a family. 
His amiable and interesting widow was subsequently the 
wife of the Rev. N. H. Harding, D. D., and respectable 
descendants are now citizens of Raleigh. Henderson suf- 
fered from the effects of the adventure during more than a 
year, and Johnson, though he survived for a longer period, 
passed away eventually a martyr to humanity. " Greater 
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life 
for his friends." 

I have met with but a single person who remembers the 
manner of Johnson's death. He states that on a very cold 



15 

day in the winter of 1811-12, while tolling the State House 
bell for a funeral, he was seen suddenly to fall to the ground, 
from supposed chill and exhaustion. He was taken up and 
carried, in the first instance, to the office of the late Treas- 
urer Haywood, and died at his own residence, in the neigh 
borhood of the late Joseph Gales, on Saturday the 4th of 
January, 1812. 

The following obituary notice, written by Colonel Hen- 
derson, then editor of the Baleigh Star, is copied from that 
paper of the 12th of January, 1812 : 

•' Died, in this City, on Saturday last, Jacob Johnson, who had for many 
years occupied an humble but useful station. He was City Constable, Sexton 
and Porter to the State Bank. In his last illness he was visited by the prin- 
cipal inhabitants of the City, by all of whom he was esteemed for his honesty, 
sobriety, industry, and humane friendly disposition. Among all by whom 
he was known and esteemed, none lament him more (except perhaps his own 
relatives) than the publisher of this paper, for he owes his life, on a particular 
occasion, to the boldness and humanity of Johnson." 

The date of Mr. Johnson's birth, and his age at the time 
of his death, have not been ascertained. I have conversed 
with such of his cotemporaries as I supposed to be most 
familiar with him, but after the lapse of fifty-five years, they 
cannot speak very definitely on the subject. 

In relation to his general character there is no discrep- 
ancy of testimony. I N am somewhat familiar with investi- 
gations of this nature, and can truly say, judging not merely 
from the uniform testimony of living witnesses, but from 
my personal knowledge of the character of the community 
in which he lived, from which he received and to which he 
imparted imprints of sentiments and opinions, I have never 
traced a more blameless history. He had many friends in 
every walk of life, and no enemies. 

He was poor, but possessed at his death of more worldly 
goods than Andrew Jackson, the elder, the father of the 



16 

if North Carolina who attained the Presidency, 

The precise date of the elder Jackson's birth and death 
are alike unknown. His illustrious son was mistaken until 
after he entered upon the duties of his high office, as to 
the State in which he himself was born. In his celebrated 
proclamation of 1832 he speaks of South Carolina as his 
native State. '•' The beat information now attainable con- 
firms the tradition which prevails in the "Wax haw country 
that Andrew Jackson, the elder, never owned an acre of 
land in America. He died in the log cabin erected by his 
own hands early in the spring of 1707. He was buried in 
the old Waxhaw churchyard. No stone marks the spot 
where his remains were deposited a hundred years ago. 
The hero of New Orleans, the third son of his father, was 
born at the house of George McOamie, in the county of 
Mecklenburg, on the 15th. of March, 1767, very shortly 
after the death of his father." 

James X. Polk, the second native North Carolinian who 
passed through Tennessee to the Presidency, was born in 
the same county of Mecklenburg, on the 17th November 
1795, about eleven miles South of Charlotte, and seventeen 
miles North of the birth-place of Gen. Jackson. On a 
journey to the Southwest, in June, 1819, I took some pains 
to ascertain the precise locality which gave birth to both. 
No vestige of the humble dwelling in which the latter first 
saw the light was discernable, but the spot where it stood 
could be identified. 

The place where President Polk was born, was, in 1849, 
the property of Nathan Orr. The house pointed out to me, 
was of logs, had never been weather-boarded, and was 
much dilapidated. It was formed of two pens, one about 
20 by 16, the other 12 by 16, making a structure 32 by 16, 



17 

with a shingle roof, and brick chimney at the North end, 
and stood about two hundred yards South of little Sugar 
Greek. Samuel, the father of President Polk, though not 
born to opulence, began life under much more favorable 
auspices than the father of either the Seventh or the 
Seventeenth President of the United States. lie was an 
energetic, industrious farmer in Mecklenburg, in 1806, 
when he removed to Tennessee, and undertook the agency 
in renting and selling of the immense and valuable estate 
in lands of the late Colonel William Polk in the most fertile 
section of that State. 

Col, William Polk was the latest surviving field officer 
of the North Carolina line, the cotemporary and personal 
friend and associate of General Jackson, not less heroic in 
war, and quite as sagacious and more successful in private 
life than he. It is an interesting coincidence that the fathers 
of the eleventh and seventeenth Presidents of the United 
States were alike indebted for promotion to a more favor- 
ble position in life to the same individual ; a man whose 
insight into character rarely admitted of the selection, and 
never of the retention, of an unworthy agent. 

Colonel William Polk was the first President, and Jacob 
Johnson the first Porter, of the State Bank of North 
Carolina. It is from such beginnings, and under such 
auspices, that three natives of the State have passed from 
poverty and obscurity in North Carolina to comparative 
opulence and eminence in Tennessee, and thence to the 
highest post of honor in the Union and the world. 

Citizens of Raleigh : — This brief and imperfect delinea- 
tion of your past history was i.idispensible to a correct 
perception and appreciation of the person in honoring 
whom you do honor to yourselves. A reference to a few 



IS 

subsequent events which unite the present with the past, 
will close the duty your kindness has imposed upon me. 

Thackeray, the English novelist, when on a visit to 
Preseott, the great American historian, in 1852, discerned 
on his library wall two crossed swords worn by the paternal 
and maternal ancestors of Prescott's children in the great 
war of American Independence. Both were unsheathed 
at Bunker Hill. One was drawn gallantly in the service 
of the King, — the other, in the hand of the Commander- 
in-Chief of the American forces, won victory and renown. 
The possessor of the harmless trophy earned for himself a 
name alike honored in his ancestor's country and his own, 
" where genius like his," says Thackeray, " will always 
find a welcome." 

In the annals of Raleigh, from its foundation to the 
present time, the future historian will have occasion to 
present no more illustrious names, no more thrilling inci- 
dents, than will be found in the lives of two contempora- 
neous individuals indissolubly connected with the observ- 
ances of this day. 

Leonidas, the favorite son of Colonel "William Polk, was 
born in 1806, two years earlier than the only surviving son 
of Jacob Johnson. The name of the former, suggesting 
the memory of remarkable events and localities in the old 
and the new world, — Thermopylae and Mecklenburg, — is 
of itself a reflex of the character of the heroic sire and 
the heroic son. There are probably few persons living, 
connected by no stronger tie than friendly associations, 
with the late Bishop Polk, who knew him so long, so 
intimately and so well as myself. He was my room-mate 
at the University. Four of the happiest days in my 
remembrance were passed when, in the autumn of 1859, 



19 

thirty-six years after his departure for West Point, he 
returned and made his first and only visit to Ohapel Hill. 
He came to my house to renew cherished associations, 
exchange the reminiscences of a life-time, and more espe- 
cially for personal conference on the subject which then 
chiefly engrossed his thoughts, the establishment and 
endowment of the University of the South. The leading 
events of these thirty-six years of his history are familiar 
to you all. Divine grace,' touching his heart near the 
close of his successful career at the Military Academy, had 
transformed the youthful soldier into the meek and humble 
follower of the cross, and he stood before me the able, 
energetic, enthusiastic Bishop of Louisiana, foremost in 
every good word and work. Two years afterward, at the 
house of his next oldest brother, in Tennessee, a telegraphic 
dispatch was placed in my hands, announcing that his 
associate at West Point, and his life-long friend, had desig- 
nated him for high command in the Confederate army, and 
the anxious enquiry was propounded, " Will the Bishop 
accept." He was fifty-five years of age, of fine form and 
commanding presence, the beau ideal of a Christian soldier 
and gentleman. He was most actively engaged in the 
accomplishment of the great literary enterprise, the com- 
plete success of which, so near to his heart, promised the 
early fulfillment of his most ardent aspirations. He had 
an ample fortune — would he leave his delightful home, his 
wife, his children, and more than all, the flock of which 
Christ had made him the overseer, for any station which 
could be assigned him in the perilous conflict? " Would 
he accept?" He did accept ; deliberately, advisedly, prayer- 
erfully accept the post of danger, and no bolder, purer 
patriot poured forth his life-blood on either side in the 

6 



20 

dreadful conflict, which astounded and saddened the civil 
zed world, and will constitute in all time to come the mof 
melancholy chapter in the history of Christian progree 
and civilization. His last letter was written to advise in 
of the death of a gallant young officer, Captain Elisha E. 
Wright, of Memphis, Tennessee, who wi II be remembered 
by some of those who hear me, as a young man of extraor- 
dinary promise, who received the premium awarded for 
English composition, with appropriate commendation, at 
the hands of President Buchanan, in 1859. At the close 
of the Senior examination in May, 1861, though the first 
distinction was assigned him, he pressed into the service 
without participating in the commencement exercises. — 
His younger brother was his first Lieutenant, and his aged 
father, the Chief Justice of Tennessee, a member of Gen. 
Bragg's Staff, when the Captain fell at the head of his col- 
umn in the bloody battle of Murfressboro', in December 
1862. 

Of the history of the son of Jacob Johnson, who com- 
menced life under such comparatively unfavorable aTispices, 
this is not the time to speak. The companion of his 
boyhood, whose character I have attempted to portray, has 
passed the portal of the grave. The President of the U. S. 
is before you scarcely more time-worn than the Lieutenant 
General seemed at our last interview. His career in life 
thus far is one of the most remarkable in any age or 
nation. His countiy and the world have decided between 
the two representative men of the two parties which 
divided North Carolina and the South, that he who achieved 
success, if not more pure and patriotic, was as brave, n8 
disinterested, and wiser than his compeer. The monuments 
of the sires are before you- The cross swords may be 



'21 

suspended as a memento of the past and a warning for the 
future. The blood of the noblest heroes on both sides of 
the conflict will soon form a union in the veins of the 
descendants of those who met in deadly strife od many well 
fought fields. The most patriotic hearts North and South, 
East and West, already beat in unison. The time has 
arrived when patriotism, not less than Christianity, requires 
the forgiveness of all that we cannot forget. Let the 
crossed swords on the monument, surmounted by the 
stripes and stars, form an appropriate ** Memorial Associa- 
tion " for the Confederate and Union dead, and no strife be 
witnessed above their graves, but patriotic and generous 
emulation to do most to promote harmony and restore " the 
mure perfect Union," designed by the Constitution of our 
common country] 



AJPJPENDIX. 



I. Description of Tucker Hall, Copied prom the Daily 

Sentinel, August, 28th. 1867. 

II. Charter op the City op Raleigh, 1792. 

III. Plan op the City — Numbers op Lots — And Names op 

Purchasers. 1792. 

IV. Raleigh— North Carolina — The University. 1806. 

V. Adult Male Population op the City. 1811. 

VI. Copy op a Letter prom Judge Potter to Judge Cam- 

eron, Specifying the Sales of Lots, with accompany- 
* ing Diagram. 1820. 

VII. Map of the City. 1834. 
VLTI. Map of the City. 1847. 




"*;•*<•■**•» xo »5 ~% Ki c-> ..;. 



.. 






' o «*» 



££ O *-. r * 



'3 « 

-- 

P .ST "2 :- .v. 






4j 8 ».-g .*. 

3 © £ 

- ♦» § a ■'« 

•r -« « 

9 C 5 

q 23 S 



ville 

* front 
; the 

• ■ or 
-:■ ^-eet, 

\ ■ and 

!|nie 

*'*ng« 

' : : to 

: _QS, 
""""Vo 



s 



»r. 



> wa 

r 



r&- 1 



■ 



The outside line tdtows tho boundary of laodt adiolltblg 
tho Cil» of Raloijrh, 1. 1 longing to tho 8ut« of Norkh CJ»r- 
olinn, directed to be nohl by the Act of Aswnnbiy of'l«I». 



Robtn £fc Jouea. 



So. 1 contains 12 



Wo. 83 contains » 8 11 

84 5 3 M 

85 '..(! S 1» 



.3 15 



18 « 1! 

in (i [J 

20 Hock Quarry. 

21 6 18 

•33 8 18 

.0 18 



U. 



Gov. Swm.': in !h< s|ieeeh ei mi nmim.rati ve of Jacob Johu- 
solli p. 8, estimates the while population of the city iu 1811 
to have been nol mora tunnaixoracvenhundrod, 'rim fol- 
low big enuincration tniulr four years previous to (be date set 
forth ill Appendix No. " iudicntca that it was on over ratboi' 
limn mi under estimate. 

The following table exhibits an aeeurate enuuiei :.l iuii i.i 

the wliule pnpiilutlon ul rtal, .:,... r, [sen Me 

laajreUea that no eel isns has been takon since the clcso of tho 
civil ivnr. The increase in 00 years ia conjectured to lie ten 

Froii the Mi.nkiiva, March :;l 

•■ Correct Ceanu of tin- Inhabitant! or Kulelgli, 

Taken iWur«'!i 33d, 1807. 

While! White Fri : B , 

Huh- t'einis ;;;:;;;: s hh,VM - ]M - 



E» torn Word, 
Middle Ward, 
Western Ward, 



TllOObo' BbKauts are evunpii/edinS.i families. Sueh 

tudonta of the leadomjr as are not poraaueiit inhabitants 

"film turn .-.re n. i meltnled ' 






iwRTH STREKT 



^lWBiatiS 8TRISET. 



Ilt.'ilt.'tl STHKKT 




L 1 


23 


21 




' 








1 


1 
i i 






25 


2627 


28 


20 3031 


32 


33 ' 


[ J 








1 




1 







i.kxiiii: sti;hi:i 



.! ! j \ 











! 50 


4 




1 


t 




4 


45 


46 


17 






]-* 


=3! 




00 




4 


1 




£ i 


i 
















1 '<$! 




I 











lis 






; 5 ■©. '■ 
















at •-. ' 














'■ 

»-.. *» *■ 
- ~ SI 

i 






£ 




'— ,taJ 


"lis 




















- 




s? 


















•* 


c 

t 


ft = 


1 






6>< 



G\ 















J 



I. 

TUCKER HALL, 

{Copied from the Daily Sentinel, August 28th., 1867.) 

The following description of this splendid structure will give the 
public some idea of the enterprise of the public-spirited firm who 
have expended their means in so greatly improving the city : 

The dimensions are as follows : Width of front on Fayetteville 
Street, 43 feet, 4 inches, running back 120 feet, with an area in front 
6 feet, covered with Hyatt's patent light work, to give light to the 
basement ; which is 40 by 60 feet, 9 feet pitch. The first story or 
store floor is the entire depth and width of the building, 117 feet, 
4 inches, by 40 feet, 8 inches, clear of walls, and 15 feet pitch, and 
finished in a style that would do credit to any Northern City. The 
walls are hard finished, with ornamental plaster cornices at the ceiling. 
In the centre there are eight iron columns of the Corinthian order, to 
support the centre of the hall floor. There are two counting rooms 
at the back end of the store, 9 by 14 feet, with ground glass partitions, 
eight feet high. The finish at the front end of the store includes two 
entrance doors and two windows, and entrance in centre to Hall floor. 

The Hall includes four rooms at the front end, parlor, saloon, dress- 
ing and ante-rooms for musicians, &c. At the back end there is a 
stage extending across the width of the building, 40 feet, 8 inches, by 
27 feet projection, including tour private boxes. The width of the 
Proscenium is 23 feet, with a height of 16 feet. There is a complete 
set of eleven scenes and 26 wings, — all done in the best style. 

The entire auditorium will seat 1,200, and the whole building is 
provided with the handsomest gas fixtures. 

The principal features are the front, which is of iron of the com- 
posite order, presenting a most imposing appearance, and the immense 
plate glass of the main windows. 

The following is a list of the artists and others, who were employ- 
ed on this superb building ; 







I'MHHTl- 



« 



, ; ' 
















. 



I 





*J\sV 



'i JI A , 



fcjSSSkS 



■I t. 






; ■ 






i t 






3'Jt 1.. 

I 

I ,<> »lRJili<lf;rilfI Hi! I<» xwil't !•>•>■ 
.9081 ,!>»« i!->i«W n^rfnT 



' 



* 



>../ 



IV 

Contractor. — Thomas Coates, Raleigh. 

Architect. — B. F. Warner, Broadway, N. Y. 

Scenic Artist. — R. S. Smith, Chesnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. 

State Carpenter. — Chas. A. Brown, lately employed at Niblo's, 
N. Y. 

Gas Fixture Makers. — McKenzie & Clan Ranald, West 4th Street, 
N. Y. 

Painter and Crainer. — Alex Hardie, Raleigh. 

Plaster and Cornicer. — J. H. Hamall. 



II. 
CHARTER OF THE CITY, 

1792. 

Chap. xiv. An Act to confirm the proceedings of the Com- 
1791, 64. " rnissioners appointed under an act of the last General 

" Assembly, entitled an act to carry into effect the Ordi- 
" nance of the Covnention held at Hillsborough, in July, one thousand 
" seven hundred and eighty-eight, entitled An Ordinance for estab" 
" lishing a place for holding the future meetings of the General As- 
" sembly, and the place of residence of the chief officers of the State. 
„ „ . Whereas a maiority of the Commissioners appointed by 

Proceedings of j j trr j 

theCommis- "the General Assembly under the above recited act, to- 
"wit: Frederick Ha rgett, Willie Jones, Joseph Mc- 
" Dowell, Thomas Blount, William Johnson Dawson, and James Mar- 
" tin. Esquires, in pursuance of the powers and authorities in them 
" vested, did on the fourth Monday of April last, purchase of Joel 

" Lane, Esq., one thousand acres of land for the use of the public, as 
" appears by a deed from the Bald Joel Lane to Alexander Mai tin, Esq., 
" Governor for the time being, for the use of the State, bearing date 
" the fifth day of April, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, 
" adjoining the tract whereon the said Joel Lane now lives, at Wake 
" County Court house, and have caused to be laid off thereon the plan 
" ot a city containing four hundred acres of land, and comprehending 
" besides streets, two hundred and seventy-six lots of one acre each J 



"which plan, together with their proceedings at large, they have re- 
" ported to this General Assembly : 

I. Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly of the State of 
" North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the 
"same, That, all and singular the proceedings of the said Commission- 
" ers relative to the premises, be, and the same are hereby recognized^ 
" confirmed and ratified, fully and completely to all intents and pur- 
" poses. 

II. And be it farther enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the 
" plan of a city so laid off, and reported to the present General As- 
*' sembly by the Commissioners atoresaid, shall be, and the same is 
" hereby received, confirmed and ratified, by the name of the city of 
" Raleigh ; and the several streets represented in the plan and the 
" public square whereon the State House is to be built, shall be called 
u and forever known by the names given to them respectively by the 
" Commissioners aforesaid ; which plan, together with the deed for 
" the land purchased, with a plat thereof annexed, shall be forthwith 
"recorded in the Secretary's office.* 

III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the 
" public square composed of number two hundred and forty-six, two 
" hundred and forty-seven, two hundred and sixty-two and two hun" 
" dred and sixty-three, shall be called and known by the name of Cas- 
" well square : That the public square composed of lots number two 
M hundred and thirty-eight, two hundred and thirty-nine, two hun- 
dred and fity-four and two hundred and fifty-five, shall be called 
M and known by the name of Burke square : That the public square 
" composed of lots number one hundred and eighteen, one hundred 
" and nineteen, one hundred and thirty-four and one hundred and 
" thirty-five, shall be called and known by the name of Nash square : 
" And that the public square composed of lots number one hundred 
" and ten, one hundred and eleven, one hundred and twenty-six and 
" one hundred and twenty-seven, shall be called and known by the 
" name of Moore square. 

IV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That as 
" soon as the State House now building on Union square in the said 
M city of Raleigh is fit for the reception of the General Assembly, they 



•" shall adjourn to that place, from which time all the Chief Officers of 
" the State, viz : The Treasurer, Secretary of State and Comptroller 
" shall hold their respective offices iu the said city of Raleigh, which 
" shall be thence forward held, deemed and considered the permanent 
" and unalterable seat of Government of the State of North Carolina, 
* l and the place of residence of the Chief Officers of the State, any law 
'' or laws to the contrary notwithstanding. 

*The State House which has been erected in Union square, since the plan 
was printed, has been placed differently than there marked. Its broader sides 
front Newberne and Hillsborough streets. 



IT. 

RALL1GH— NORTII CAROLINA— THE UNIVERSITY. 

1806 

An account of the literature of this State might be comprised in a 
single page, and if the length of the account was regarded only in 
the proportion it bears to its interest, that page would be deemed 
tedious. There are only ten presses in the State, viz: two in Raleigh, 
two in Newbern, and one in each of the towns of Edenton, Halifax, 
Wilmington, Fayetteville, Salisbury and Warrenton. From each of 
these presses issues a weekly paper, except the one in Salisbury, which 
is employed in printing handbills and pamphlets. The papers are 
compilations and the few books published are law books and the 
doggerel hymns of religious enthusiasts and now and then a trashy 
novel, which is commouly exchanged for other trash at the Literary 
Fair. I will give as complete a list as I am able of all the original 
works ever published in this State, with a brief character annexed. 

1. Haywood's Reports of cases decided in the Superior Courts of 
this State. A valuable book, published by Hodge & Boylan, 1 800. 

N. B. A second volume is now in the press of Wm. Boylan. 

2. A journey to Lake Drummond, by Lemuel Sawyer. The events 
are without interest, the remarks puerile, and the language the most 
superlative bombast. Published eight or ten years ago. 

3. Matilda Berkeley, a noveL About upon a level with the Mas- 



TII- 



.chusetts novel of the Coquette or Eliza Wharton Published by 

fWes. In 1804. 

4 "i .Mor's Reports of cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of 
"oiiu Carolina. Of a moderate reputation, Martin & Ogden, 1802. 

5. History of the Kehukie Baptist Association, by Burkit & Read. 
Boylan, 1804. 

6. A Masonic Ritual, published under the direction of the Grand 
Lodge of North Carolina. The best of the kind — Sims, 1806. 

7. Davie's Cavalry — an excellent system. Hodge, 1798. Cameron's 
Law Reports are in the press of J. Gales, of which there are favorable 
expectations. 

These are the only publications which I recollect, that have assumed 
the dignity of a volvme. Of political and religious pamphlets we 
have quantum svfficit. The Rev. Joseph Caldwell, President of the 
University of North Carolina, is the first scientific and literary char- 
acter in the State. He is now employed in writing a book on Math- 
ematics, intended as a school book. Two Sermons and an Eulogium 
on General Washington by him, which have been published separate- 
ly in pamphlets, are handsome specimens of his abilities. I know of 
no other pamphlets that merit the respect of being named. There is 
in this State one University and several Academies but none of them 
are supported by permanent funds. The University was founded 
about fourteen years ago and received from the State a donation of 
all balances then due the State trom revenue officers, all confiscated 
and escheat property and a loan of $10,000. To a " huge, mis- 
shapen pile," which is placed on a high, rocky, eminence twenty-eight 
miles from this, has been given the name of the college, and a dona- 
tion from Gen. Thomas Person built a neat chapel. After consider- 
able difficulties were experienced on account of incompetent teachers 
and insurrections among the students, the institution under the direc- 
tion of Mr. Caldwell, two professors and two tutors, acquired regu- 
larity and consistency in its exercises, when our enlightened legisla- 
ture discovered that education was inconsistent with republicanism, 
that it created an aristocracy of the learned, who would trample upon 
the rights and liberties of the ignorant, and that an equality of in- 
tellect was necessary to preserve the equality of rights. Influenced 



vni 

by these wise and patriotic considerations, the legislature gave to 
themselves again, what they had before given to the University. The 
institution now languishes. Mr. Caldwell's an ti- republican love of 
literature, and not the emoluments of his office, induces him to pre- 
serve in existence, by his influence, even the shadow of a college. He 
is assisted by only one tutor ; the funds do not permit the employ- 
ment of more. There is an excellent female academy lately establish- 
ed by the Society of United Brethren (Moravians) at Salem. There 
are very good academies at Raleigh, Newbeme, Fayetteville, Louis- 
burg, Warrenton and two or three others. A public library has been 
founded in Newberne by a donation of $500 from Thomas Tomlinson. 
It is divided into eighty shares of $20 each ; all the shares are filled 
and the books purchased. It is contemplated to extend the number 
of shares to one hundred and twenty. I know of no other public 
libraries in the State, except one in Iredell County, established by a 
Society called the Centre Benevolent Society, which has subsisted 
nearly twenty years. 

[The preceeding article is an extract from a letter ot a gentleman 
in Raleigh, to the editors of the Anthology — the precurser of the North 
American Revieio — dated Feb. 24th, 1806. Due allowance should be 
made for the evident political bias of the writer. [ 



V. 

ADULT MALE POPULATION. 
1811. 
COPY OF AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN " THE STAR" UNDER 
THE " RALEIGH" HEAD, FRIDAY APRIL 26th, 1811. 

'A statement of the apportionment of the citizens of Raleigh in classes 
as a General Watch for the City, made by John S. Rabateau, William 
Jones and Mark Cooke, a committe appointed for that purpose by 
the General Board ot Commissioners for the said city, to- wit : 

1. *Isaac Lane, Jos. G Norwood, Charles Parish, Oliver Thomas, 
Dawson Atkinson, John Barker. 



IX. 

2. William Peace, Henry G-uyre, Lewis Holloman, John Stewart 
(Shoemaker), Abraham Dodd, Anthony Foster. 

3. William Scott, Richard Smith, Josiah Dillard, James G. Mitchell, 
Arthur Reeves, John Cross. 

4. William Boylan, John Williams, Henry H. Cooke, Neill Brown, 
Willie Sledge, James Ruth. 

5 Joseph Gales, John Stewart (Merchant), William W. Seaton, Cole- 
man Miller, Daniel Peck, Benjamin Pulliam, Jr. 

6. Thomas Emond, Martin Adams, William Glendening, Henry 
Bland, Christopher Christophers, Jona Sheppard. 

7. Souihy Bond, Thomas Rice, James Utly, John J. Briggs, Joseph 
Mullegan, Nicholas Sheffield. 

8. John Wyatt, Wesley Whitaker, John Haywood, Samuel Pearson, 
William Rambaut, Adams Alexander, 

9. Joseph Peace, Henry Potter, Daniel L. Barringer, Abel B Fairman, 
Joel Jones, Jacob Willfong. 

10. Samuel Goodwin, Calvin Jones, Mark Cooke, Thomas Card, Joel 
Miller, Samuel Combs. 

11. Beverly Daniel, Abraham Boylan, William H. Haywood, Stephen 
Haywood, William Brown, Benson Card, Jr. 

12. William PecJc, Robert Harrison, Hardy Sanders, Thomas Hen- 
derson, Alexander Lucas, John Dodd. 

18. Willis Rogers, Thomas Scott, Robert Nutt, Edmund R. Pitt, 
John McLemore, Joshua Allen. 

14. Sherwood Haywood, John Scott, Robert Callum, John Carney, 
Elhannon Nutt, William Terry. 

15. William Jones, Henry Gorman, Matthew Shaw, Jas. Thompson, 
Alfred Jones, John Allen. 

16. John 8. Rdbatau, WillinnV Hill, John Rice, Richard Ligon, John 
Powers, John Terry, Sr. 

$7. James Coman, Sterling Wheaton, David Royster, Turner Daugh 
tery, James M'Kee. 

18 Benjamin King, John Marshall, Hartwell Reeves, William White, 
Sr, Woody Martin, William H. Wiliams. 

19 Robert Cannon, Joseph Ross, Willis Rhodes, Wm. M. White, 
Robert Williams. 

20. Jacob Johnson, David Beard, Henry B. Mears, William P. Ferrell. 

♦Those in Italic are captains of each respective company. 



x. 



VI. 

LETTER FROM JUDGE POTTER TO JUDGE CAMERON— AC- 
COUNT OF LOTS, NUMBERS AND PRICES SOLD IN 
1820. 



No. 1 Moses Morclecai, 
2 John McLeod, 
8 H. Seawell, 

4 Jno. F. Goneke, 

5 Jeremiah Battle, 

6 V\ m McPheters, 

7 Kimbrougb Jones, 

8 Bryan and Robards, 

9 Jno. Holloway, 

10 'no. F Goneke, 

11 Ditto, 

12 Jno. S. Rabatau, 

13 W. F. Clarke, 

14 David Royster, 

15 Jere Battle, 

16 Ditto, 

17 Wm Nichols, 

18 Ditto, 

19 Wm. McPheeters, 

20 John Branch, 

21 John Robertson, 

22 George Luther, 

23 Wra. Peck, 

24 Ann Falconer, 

25 Com. of City, 

26 Ann Falconer, 

27 Josiah Dillard, 

28 Meritt Dillard, 

29 Bryan and Robards, 

30 Ditto, 

31 Ditto, 



1335 
1055 
1500 
505 
500 
510 
485 
575 
650 
150 
175 
155 
190 
180 
130 
145 
19( 
260 
245 
290 
600 
65 
55 
45 
20 
125 
150 
195 
115 
155 
190 



No 32 John Branch, 

33 Bryan and Robards, 
84 D. L. Barringer, 

35 Jonathan Busbee, 

36 Ditto, 

37 John Dunn, 

38 Ditto, 

39 Sherwood Havwood. 

40 Ditto, 

41 Bryan and Robards, 

42 Ditto, 

43 Jno J. S. Ruffin, 

44 Ditto, 

45 Ditto, 

46 Ditto, 

47 Beng. S. King, 

48 Ditto, 

49 Ditto, 

50 James Henderson, 

51 Joseph Gales, 

52 Ditto, 

53 Wm. Boylan, 

54 Susan Schaub, 

55 .lames F. Taylor, 

56 Ditto, 

57 Charles Parish, 

58 Ditto, 

59 Ditto, 

60 H. Potter, 

61 Ditto, 

62 (Ditto, 



165 
170 
550 
180 
215 
120 
110 
155 
145 
160 
115 
445 
510 
575 
335 
235 
500 
550 
510 
4U 
410 
600 
800 
565 
12 55 
475 
450 
450 
1200 
750 
520 



Dear Sir: — 

Above you have the amount of our sales, They were surely great 
considering the times, but I regret that we received so little aid from 
abroad. The firm of Bryan & Robards was composed of J. H. B * 
Mid Wm. Robards, for speculation. Some lots have already sold at 



XI. 

an advance and others might be sold at considerable profit. We were 
deceived in lot No. 49, we supposed it to be old field, whereas it was 
very good wood land. Hence the vast difference between the appraise- 
ment and sale. Mr. Seawell had bought out R Jones before the sale 
Jones takes his lot and houses in town for which lie gives his 22 or 
23 acres of land and pays for 5 acres (including the spring) ot the lot 
purchased by Seawell. 

There was spirited bidding and excessive warmth manifested when 
No. 1 was up. The bidders were Col. Polk, Thos. P. Devereux and 
the tGovernor for Mordecai. I paid dearly for Sooky Davis, but I 
have now a good settlement. John Stuart run me up for the sake of 
doing so. Col. Polk put Mr. Seawell up to the $1500. We made 
a small alteration in the plan so as to strike the line between Seawell 
and Parish, and give an outlet to the neighborhood in that direction, 
and we continued the road from Davie street to the back line at Par- 
ishes, for the accommodation of the people down Walnut We were 
earnestly beset by the people in town and county for these outlets. 

Lot No 5 thus altered, contains 177 acres and No. 54, 7-2-20. We 
have given 60 to the quarry. The Governor has consented to cover 
the expense incurred by us, in the survey and sales, by a warrant on 
the Treasury 

Col. Robards attended. Mr. Winslow did not. He said he could 
not, though he much wished it. We are yet taking bonds, and shall 
be for some time No contract is yet made for work or materials. 

Had I time I would give you many circumstances, but I am pre- 
paring for my circuit and am very much hurried. I hope ere this 
Mrs. Cameron is in such a state of health as to relieve you from your 
anxiety. 

With much respect, I am dear sir, your friend and obedient servant. 

H. POTTER. 

*The lats Gen. Joseph H. Bryan and Col. "William Robards, late Public 
Treasurer, then citizens of Granville. 
+The late Gov. Branch. 



; 



J 



...;,..._,.,._ 



EAR^Y TIMES IN UALEIGIi. 



ADDRESSES 



DELIVERED BY THE 



HON. DAVID L. SWAIN, LL. D, 



AT THE DEDICATION OF 



TUCKER HALL," 

AND ON THE OCCASION OF THE COMPLETION OF THE 
MONUMENT TO 

JACOB JOHNSON; 

WITII 

MAPS OF THE CITY OF RALEIGH, 

FOR THE YEARS 1792, 1834 AND 1847. 




R A L E I G II : 

W A ITERS, HUGHES & C M P A N Y , 

1 8 G 7 . 



w. t. w vt,teks. j. ir. MtLL-s. t. m. huoues 

WALTERS, HUGHES & *C0., 

rifif lie I Piiyiiini, 

NO. 42, F.4YETTEVILLE STREET, 

(OPPOSITE SEW NATIO> m i:\NK.I 

E A L E I a 11 , X . C . 

BIBLICAL 11 E C O II D E 1 J , 

A FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 

DEVOTED TO 

Religion, 

Morality, 

Literature 

and General 

Intelligence. 

W. T. W4LTERS, ) r ,i:*„... 

3. H MILL*, { Editor*. 

W. ML WITVOATJE, D. !>., Associate Editor. 

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY. 

Price $3 00---------- -Per Annum. 

RATES OF ADVERTISING. 



For first insertion, ------- in cents, a line, 

" subsequent insertion, - • 5 ' 

Special contracts made for long advertisements, and for those inserted by 
the year. 



BOOKS, MAGAZINES, PAMPHLETS 

NEWSPAPERS CARDS, BILL HEADS 

AND AXL KINDS OF 

PLAIN AXTD COLORED PP.IXTTING- 

Done with neatness and dispatch, and upon terms .as favorable as can 
be eleen here obtained. 

lb N '10 

y 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




0014418 101 3 



jggj 



H 



Hffieffi 



